Now Delta airlines have joined the party
 

I found this an appalling way to treat paying customers.
Watching the video, the family had paid for all its seats, the flight was overbooked. There was no counter offer discussed, i.e. a free hotel and cash.

Then Delta tries to twist the situation to their advantage by quoting safety regs by stating the 2 yr old must sit on the parent's lap for the duration of the flight, FAA rules apparently whilst Deltas own website clearly states 2 yr olds can travel in kids seats the parents had carried onto the flight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7pM8IyxpTc

These problems should be sorted at check in or the gate. The airlines that allow it to get to the cabin have serious management issues.

From Delta's own Website 2 minutes ago (my bolding)

"Infant & Child Seating
We want you and your children to have the safest, most comfortable flight possible. For kids under the age of two, we recommend you purchase a seat on the aircraft and use an approved child safety seat.

If you decide to use a child safety seat aboard the airplane, there are a few restrictions and guidelines you'll need to follow."

Which is, of course, nonsense:

"Did you know that the safest place for your child on an airplane is in a government-approved child safety restraint system (CRS) or device, not on your lap? Your arms aren't capable of holding your child securely, especially during unexpected turbulence.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) strongly urges you to secure your child in a CRS or device for the duration of your flight. It's the smart and right thing to do so that everyone in your family arrives safely at your destination"

FAA: Flying with Children

I expect regulations on approved child seat but I did not hear that being raised as an issue, the stewardess could have stated:

"you need to use one of our approved seats".

FAA advisory on the topic
 

"...there are a few restrictions and guidelines you'll need to follow."
Which are...
http://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/AC_120-87C.pdf

Was the child 2?
Was the seat approved and labelled?
Was a seat available that the cabin crew determined could be used safely?

From Deltas website

I would say that some staff use the power they have to make life miserable as a job perk.

Well let's be careful here. 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. An innocent enough assumption on the part of the family, but the person above, who said this should have been sorted out at checkin, is absolutely correct.

Ah ha, that offers more information I was unaware of.

It is outrageous that the Delta staff would attempt to get a parent to hold a child during a flight against the parents best judgement. That line of discussion should be off the table.
They are presuming that the parents feel capable of doing that.

As for bouncing the family in the name of enforcing the non-transferability of the ticket (giving the benefit of a doubt to Delta), in the context of this particular situation, that would still be pretty seedy for a company that depends on good public relations.

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.

Definitely agree that these issues should be resolved at check-in ideally, or at the gate at the latest. With internet check-in being used by so many I think the gate staff are becoming more important as the check-in process is by passed by many passengers these days

People salivate with schadenfreude and anxiously await to be offended and appalled in today's pathetic socially polluted environment. It is outrageous that people make premature half-informed judgments based on the internet and social media. People love to do it though.. Nonetheless, I am outraged. I am appalled. I am shocked and appalled. I am offended. I shall take my business elsewhere, ( for at least four weeks). I shall post this on social media and give it a four-star rating...and a "Like". BLAH BLAH BLAH

Delta Flight Removes Parents due to 2yr old
 

Family with 2yr old told to vacate plane due the fact that FAA rules state that the infant cannot occupy a car seat placed in a normal seat or that the infant cannot occupy a normal seat.

Father claims that Delta flew them to Hawaii from LAX, but why not back?

Father asks what are they to do once off the plane. At 6:48 the 'attendant' seems to say "You're on your own".

https://www.liveleak.com/view?i=53e_1493878088

Question: If Delta flew them in (Rightly or wrongly), shouldn't Delta be responsible to get them back?

Delta staff 'tell California couple they could be jailed' | Daily Mail Online

Family with 2yr old told to vacate plane due the fact that FAA rules state that the infant cannot occupy a car seat placed in a normal seat or that the infant cannot occupy a normal seat.

And the solution is?

Overbooking
 

Last week I flew with American Airlines from Vancouver, BC to Austin, TX and return.

ALL four legs were overbooked.

I will NEVER fly on ANY American owned airline again.

Do U.S. airlines overbook business class?

I've a flight with United, booked before the debacle, in Business in July. LAX to SFO, presumably a popular route!

What are the odds of getting bumped!

I'd say you are well safe alerire as all carriers have learnt sharp lessons in the past month. It's the same when a carrier has a crash - just afterwards is their safetest time. (normally!)

LAX-SFO.... busy route. If you get bumped, chances are you'd be on the next flight, probably within a few hours and with a nice bit of cash in your back burner. Overbooking isn't always a bad thing.

This is one flight out of thousands of US flights that flew on that day. So as far as I can tell it comes down to the fact that as the family had paid for the seat for the 18 year old son they thought it would be ok to put the child seat in that seat. It wasn't.
Having lived in the US we have travelled on many internal flights. Never have we seen any one being thrown off a flight or had any trouble ourselves. The number of flights that we have been on where they have asked for volunteers to fly later can be counted on one hand and never has there not been enough volunteers.
We have used Delta(80%), United, Jet Blue, South West and Virgin internally, all with no problems. Follow a few simple rules, check in on line (most Americans don't), get to the airport in good time, don't think that the rules don't really apply to you and finally check in a bag. I know it can cost more but they don't like the hassle of trying to find your bag if they want to bump you off.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.)

old,not bold
Another consequence of 9/11?

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. :ok:

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."

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.

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.

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.