Originally Posted by
MichaelKPIT
The family HAD purchased the seat, yes, but they'd purchased it for their 18yr old son, who had since traveled on another flight, and they assumed they could use his seat to put the car seat in. Airline tickets are not transferable.
Although the airline handled it badly, this is the most important point - in effect, the family brought along a person who was not on the person for whom the ticket was bought and the seat was in the name of someone else.
All the airline had to do was to tell the guy he had brought another person onto the aircraft who was not on the passenger list and he had broken a whole lot of security rules so please exit the aircraft.