A family from California was threatened with jail time and then booted off an oversold Delta flight last week for refusing to give up a seat they paid for, according to a report.
The latest debacle for the airline was caught in an eight-minute YouTube video that shows employees telling Brian Schear that he and his family would be tossed behind bars if they didn’t get off the Los Angeles International Airport-bound flight from Maui on April 23.
A female employee can be heard telling him in the video, “Then that’s going to be a federal offense and you and your wife will be in jail and your kids.”
“We’re going to be in jail? And my kids are going to be in what?” Schear, of Huntington Beach, asks in disbelief.
“It’s a federal offense if you don’t abide by it,” she explains, to which the dad responds, “I bought that seat!”
Delta employees wanted to give the extra seat Schear originally purchased for his son — who caught an earlier flight home — to a standby passenger.
But the Schears wanted to keep the seat and fill it with one of their two toddlers, who’d be placed in a car seat.
But the female worker was insistent that the family’s plans were against Federal Aviation Administration rules, and because of that, the child had to sit on one of his parents’ laps instead.
“He can’t occupy a seat because he’s 2 years or younger. That’s FAA regulations.
This plane will not go anywhere until you guys choose to go. I’m just trying to help you,” she said.
“Trying to help us would’ve been not overselling the flight and not trying to force us to get him out of that seat that I paid for and holding this whole plane up,” Schear answered. “So what are we supposed to do? I’ve got two infants, nowhere to stay, there’s no more flights. What are we supposed to do? Sleep in the airport?”
The dad of three and his family eventually got off the plane and booked another flight home for the next day.
“We never thought it was going to get to the point where they were actually getting us all off the flight,” Schear told CBS Los Angeles.
“As we were leaving the plane, there’s four or five passengers waiting for our seat. The bottom line is, they oversold the flight.”
Schear said he didn’t want his money back just an apology from Delta.
“We are sorry for what this family experienced,” the airline said in a statement to CBS. “Our team has reached out and we will be talking with them to better understand what happened and come to a resolution.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7pM8IyxpTc
