Confusing rules put Delta in hot seat
New airline passenger dispute involves an O.C. couple traveling with two toddlers.
The latest airline passenger dispute — this one involving Delta Air Lines and an Orange County couple traveling with two toddlers — points to confusing and little-known regulations that led to a delayed flight and frustrated fliers.
The couple, Brian and Brittany Schear of Huntington Beach, said they were kicked off a Los Angelesbound Delta flight from Hawaii last month after being told that their 2-year-old son could not sit by himself, even though the family had already paid for a ticket and had a car seat for the child.
A video of the family’s April 23 clash with airline staff was uploaded to YouTube on Wednesday. In the clip, employees of either the airline or the airport can be heard threatening the family with arrest if they don’t immediately leave the cabin.
“You and your wife will be in jail,” a female employee said, after Brian Schear refused to exit the plane, according to the video.
The dispute comes as airlines face criticism for a series of onboard confrontations that have prompted federal lawmakers to hold hearings in Washington, D.C., on ways to improve customer service.
The conflict involving the Schear family touches on at least four airline and federal regulations, some of which were incorrectly cited by the employees.
Delta issued a statement Thursday saying: “We are sorry for the unfortunate experience our customers had with Delta, and we’ve reached out to them to refund their travel and provide additional compensation.
“Delta's goal is to always work with customers in an attempt to find solutions to their travel issues. That did not happen in this case and we apologize.”
The argument began when employees told the Schears that they could not put their 2-year-old son in an individual seat they had purchased for their 18-year-old son, Mason, who flew back to California on an earlier flight.
A staff member can be heard on the video telling Brian Schear that both Delta’s guidelines and Federal Aviation Administration rules stipulate that the 2year-old child must fly while seated on a parent’s lap, but rules posted on both Delta’s and the FAA’s websites appear to contradict that.
The couple also had a 1year-old child with them.
“I paid for the seat,” Brian Schear said in the video. “This is ridiculous.”
Schear and employees are heard debating the rules for several minutes before one staff member told the couple that they must leave the flight or be taken off by force.
The couple told KABCTV’s “Eyewitness News” that they left the flight, had to scramble to find a hotel room and paid an extra $2,000 to take another flight the next day. The Schear family did not respond to an emailed request for comment.
The dispute involves several rules:
Federal law requires each passenger 18 and older to show identification that matches the name on the boarding pass. Children under 18 are not required to show identification to board a flight. (This is where the conf lict gets murky. Because the Schear family had bought a ticket for Mason but wanted to use the seat for their 2-year-old son, there was no way for the flight attendant to prove that the child was not Mason.)
Delta rules say a child younger than 2 may travel on the lap of an adult. If one adult brings two infants, the adult must buy a ticket and put the second child in “an approved safety seat.” Children who are 2 or older must be put in a child safety seat.
The FAA “strongly urges” parents to put young children in a “child safety restraint system.” The agency says, “Your arms aren’t capable of holding your child securely, especially during unexpected turbulence.”
FAA rules also say that an airline cannot keep an adult from using a child seat for their child.
Brian Schear insisted to the employees that the family had taken a Delta flight earlier in the week from Los Angeles to Maui with their son fastened in a child safety seat and placed in an individual seat.
“How did we get through security with two kids, two car seats, go all the way through your gateway, and through the gate and then they come down and say that we have to get off this plane?” he asked.
An employee insists that they were simply trying to help the family, prompting another irritated response from Brian Schear.
“Trying to help us would have been not overselling the flight and not trying to get him out of that seat that I paid for,” he said.
Schear eventually offered to fly with his son in his lap, but the flight staff ordered his family off the flight. Once he was informed that his family was being removed from the plane, Schear asked where his family was supposed to stay or how they were supposed to get back to Los Angeles.
“Sir, you should have thought about that in the beginning,” the attendant responds. “At this point you guys are on your own.”