Family removed from flight for not giving up child’s seat
Delta attendant threatened father, mother with jail for not abiding her demands
A Southern California father said he and his family were booted from a Delta flight after they declined to give up a seat they had bought for their teenage son and were attempting to use for his 2-year-old sibling.
Brian and Brittany Schear, of Huntington Beach, S.C., were on a red-eye flight April 23 from Maui to Los Angeles when they got into an argument with officials after being told that they had to give the seat to another passenger.
“I bought the seat,” Schear is seen telling the agents in a video of the incident, explaining that he initially purchased the seat for his18-year-old son but sent the teen home early on another flight so that the toddler would have a seat on the plane.
“It’s a red-eye. He won’t sleep unless he’s in his car seat. So, otherwise, he’d be sitting in my wife’s lap, crawling all over the place, and it’s not safe.”
The couple said they were also travelling with a 1-year-old.
An agent told Schear that unless he complied, he would have to leave the plane, which had yet to take off.
“Then they can remove me off the plane,” he replied.
“You and your whole family?” the agent asked. “Yeah, that’s fine,” he said. “So, then, it’s going to be a federal offence,” another agent quickly chimed in, “and you and your wife will be in jail and your kids will be . . .”
“We’re going to be in jail and my kids are going to be what?” Schear interrupted.
“It’s a federal offence if you don’t abide by it,” she said.
Later in the video, an agent can be heard telling Schear that according to Federal Aviation Administration regulations, his 2-year-old son could not occupy a seat during the flight and would need to sit in an adult’s lap.
Schear explained that his toddler had been strapped into a car seat in his own seat on the destination flight, but the agent brushed him off.
In actuality, the FAA states that children are safer in governmentapproved car seats, not on laps, saying, “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,” the agency states.
Even Delta urges parents to purchase seats for children younger than 2 and to use approved childrestraint systems during the flights.
The issue, it seems, is transferring airline tickets from one passenger to another. Delta Air Lines maintains on its website that “all tickets are non-transferable per the fare rules. Name changes are not permitted.”
Eventually, Schear asked whether he could concede, move the toddler and get in the air, but an agent told him it was too late, saying his family would either have to exit the aircraft or the crew would have to deplane all of the passengers.
Delta Air Lines said it was “sorry” for what the Schears went through.
“Our team has reached out and will be talking with them to better understand what happened and come to a resolution,” the airline said in a statement Thursday morning to the Washington Post.
The FAA says it’s a federal crime to interfere “with the duties of a crew member.”