More airline furor

The airlines behaving badly stories just keep coming, with the newest incident involving parents who were threatened with arrest and having their children taken away for refusing to give up the seat their baby was sitting in. Brian and Brittany Schear were on an overnight Delta flight from Hawaii to Los Angeles last week with their two young children, ages 2 and 1. They'd originally bought the disputed seat for their 18-year-old, Mason, who ended up flying home a day earlier, so they put their 2-year-old in the seat instead. But when the airline saw that Mason hadn't checked in, they gave the seat on the overbooked flight to someone else. Brian Schear refused to give up the seat, saying he'd paid for it, and in video posted Wednesday (May 3rd) he's shown arguing with airline staff, saying, "I bought the seat and you need to just leave us alone." In the video, a Delta employee is heard threatening them with jail if they don't give up the seat, adding that their kids would then be put in foster care. A Delta employee also tells them that it's against FAA regulations for a child to fly in a car seat, when in fact that's exactly what they recommend. When Schear finally relents and asks if it's okay for him to stay on and hold the child on his lap, which is what he was first asked to do, they said no. They ended up getting off the plane, with Brittany Schear, who posted the video on Facebook, saying it was the middle of the night and they had no hotel room, and had to buy new tickets for the next day. Delta apologized yesterday, saying it had reached out to the Schears to refund their tickets and give them "additional compensation." The airline said in a statement, "We are sorry for the unfortunate experience our customers had with Delta. 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."


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