Now Delta airlines have joined the party

[.Scott]

Originally Posted by surely not

Interesting to read your reaction .Scott if you, holding a valid ticket, are offloaded to allow a family who haven't a valid additional ticket insisting on using an extra seat for a car seat for an infant. I'm sure you would be very understanding of the situation and walk away with a smile on your face.

You did not read my post as intended. I was not objecting to the removal of the family - only on the dialog leading up to it. The staff crossed a line.

Given the decision to play the non-transferability issue, the staff should have:
1) Since they were not offering compensation for the seat, they should have lead with the non-transferability issue - and kept that as the base of the conversation.
2) Informed the parents that carrying the child on their lap was permitted, but not demand that they do so. Their other options are for all of them or some of them to leave with the infant.
3) Once they were given the choice, it would have been very appropriate to let them be for a couple of minutes so they could make up their minds and create a plan.

Of course, there is also the question about whether you want to play that non-transferability card in this situation.

I didn't have time to look at the video before. Having looked at it, it really isn't "outrageous", just not well-handled.
It seems the Delta staff was caught off guard by the status of the seat. I'm guessing that when the teenage son failed to show for the first leg of the flight, they presumed the seat to be unoccupied - but never communicated that to the father until the video we see here.

The press report is also deceptive. The audio isn't great on that video, but the "jail" conversation seems to be introduced by the father, not the staff.

[MichaelKPIT]

Maybe someone with more recent knowledge on the subject could refresh my memory here. (I worked in BA reservations for a number of years many many years ago.) A child is considered an infant up until, but not including, its 2nd birthday, at which point it becomes a child. An infant is not required to have a seat (ticket yes, seat no) but the family may purchase a seat at the child fare if they choose to do so. (On Concorde they had to - infants weren't allowed.) A child (2nd birthday to 12th birthday) must have a seat. From what I remember (and I may be wrong here) if they set off on their journey with an infant, but that infant has its 2nd birthday while they're away and becomes a child, it's the airline's responsibility to provide a seat for its return journey.

[GrahamO]

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.

[douglasheld]

MichaelPIT, the 2 years guidelines are not the same between the CAA and the FAA. I posted the current guidance document from the FAA earlier in this thread.

If an infant becomes a child during the trip, the fare rules are calculated based on the age at origin of the trip. The seating rules for each leg follow the actual age at each flight.

None of that stuff is terribly relevant to this situation, where (as it has been pointed out multiple times) this comes down to a passenger name mismatch on the return flight that day.

[PaxBritannica]

Am I right in thinking that once the family was deboarded, four waiting people got their seats?

If the flight had been quiet, do we think the family would still have been ejected? As in, would the non-transferrable issue have bothered the Delta person so much if she wasn't under pressure to find seats?

[old,not bold]

The real problem that the industry faces is that a significant number of Cabin Crew, in the USA particularly but not solely, have been taught/encouraged/trained to behave towards passengers in a bullying and threatening manner, if and when a passenger questions any instruction, including one to give up a seat, get off the plane for no good reason, and so on. Cabin Crew sometimes appear unable to distinguish between the instructions they must legitimately issue for the safety and good conduct of the flight, and instructions which have some other purpose, such as accommodating over-booked passengers. These same people are far too fond of making dire threats of legal and police action.

This tendancy needs to be stopped right now. So does the tendancy for cabin crew to hold their customers in contempt, spurred on by threads like the one that used to exist (perhaps it still does) on PPRuNe, sneering at foolish questions and remarks by passengers. Most of us could start and populate a hilarious thread about the things that Cabin staff sometimes say. (EG, I heard a Ryanair FA reassuring a nervous passenger; "Don't worry, if both the wing engines stop, there's another little one in the back." She was absolutely serious; I checked with her.)

[PAXboy]

old,not bold

The real problem that the industry faces is that a significant number of Cabin Crew, in the USA particularly but not solely, have been taught/encouraged/trained to behave towards passengers in a bullying and threatening manner, if and when a passenger questions any instruction, including one to give up a seat, get off the plane for no good reason, and so on. Cabin Crew sometimes appear unable to distinguish between the instructions they must legitimately issue for the safety and good conduct of the flight, and instructions which have some other purpose, such as accommodating over-booked passengers. These same people are far too fond of making dire threats of legal and police action.

Another consequence of 9/11?

[DaveReidUK]

Originally Posted by old,not bold

I heard a Ryanair FA reassuring a nervous passenger; "Don't worry, if both the wing engines stop, there's another little one in the back." She was absolutely serious; I checked with her.)

That shows a commendable understanding of the important role the APU would play in the very unlikely event of double engine failure.

Good for her.

[old,not bold]

DaveReidUK, just in case you didn't have your tongue firmly in cheek, let me assure you that she thought it was there to provide get-you-home propulsion if all else failed.

Here's another one;

Passenger; "Why are the wingtips turned up like that?"

FA (definitely not taking the p**s); "I'm not sure, but I think it's to make it easier to park."

Another consequence of 9/11?

No, I don't think so. It's the inevitable consequence of the industry's race to the bottom as carriers strive to offer a cheaper and cheaper product by ruthlessly cutting costs, with the focus on staff costs when other operating costs are to quite an extent out of the operators' control. And as staff costs are driven lower, so do the standards of training and customer service go down and down. We shouldn't grumble, really; we are getting what the spreadsheet wonders think we want to pay for.

[PAXboy]

Yes old,not bold, I am one of the first to point to the financial trends however, when looking at all of these FA related problems, I wonder if they have been trained to think about the threats of unruly pax as more than just a local difficulty. It was the FAs who took the first brunt of the attacks.

[omnis]

Original Youtube video upload has been removed by user. Last I looked it had reached more than 4 million views. I wonder why he removed it, pay day or further threats.