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Reuters
No huge bunnies died, no doctor was roughed up and no fists were flying, but the airline industry is faced with another PR fire after a family of four, including two babies, were kicked off a Delta red-eye flight from Maui to Los Angeles.
Essentially, the father, Brian Schear, explains that he put his teenage son on an earlier flight so that his 2-year-old could have a seat to himself.
“I bought the seat,” he said. “You’re saying you’re going to give that away to someone else when I paid for that seat? That’s not right.”
But the agent wasn’t having it, and then took everything she presumably learned about de-escalating such a situation and tossed it out the exit door by telling Schear that, if he didn’t comply, he would go to jail and his kids would be taken away.
Still, Schear remained remarkably calm the whole time and didn’t budge as the tension ratcheted up. At one point, the agent seemed to resort to a lie to convince the family to leave, claiming that, according to FAA regulations, the boy wasn’t allowed to sit in the seat by himself and could only fly if in the lap of a parent.
Of course, any parent who flies knows this to be completely untrue. In fact, the FAA states that children are safer in car seats, and says on its site that “Your arms aren’t capable of holding your child securely, especially during unexpected turbulence.”
Watch the whole episode unfold:
The handshake introduction was a nice touch.
“Airlines don’t give a crap about their customers,” Brittany Schear, wrote on her Facebook page. “It was the middle of the night, we had no hotel to go to or a car.”
The family eventually left the plane, managed to find a hotel room and had to buy $2,000 in new tickets the next day, all without any refunds from the airline.
Delta DAL, +0.68% for its part, issued a statement saying, “We’re sorry for what this family experienced, and our team has reached out and will be talking with them to better understand what happened and come to a resolution.”
This latest mess comes just days after House lawmakers told airline officials at a congressional hearing to improve customer service in the wake of recent incidents or face possible new regulations.”
“If you want to keep treating us this way, fine,” Rep. Michael E. Capuano said. “But there will come a day when Congress won’t accept it anymore on behalf of the American people.”
That day may come sooner rather than later, at this rate.
