A young couple bought three tickets for a flight from Hawaii to Los Angeles. They were allowed on the plane and were seated when a Delta employee insisted that their two year old son must give up his seat even though the parents paid for the seat. They argued back and forth with the father insisting he paid for the seat and if Delta overbooked the flight it was their fault and not his. At this point, a Delta employee told them (According to the father):
‘You have to give up the seat or you’re going to jail, your wife is going to jail and they’ll take your kids from you.’
After arguing for a while, the couple agreed to hold their two year old on their lap but were suddenly told by the employees that they were being kicked off the flight and were denied a refund for the three seats they had paid for. They had to pay for a hotel room and then pay for three more tickets in order to get home.
So, exactly what rights do you have as a paying customer of an airline? Almost none. An airline can kick you off a flight for any reason, including them overbooking a flight.
That’s when the “involuntary denied boarding” rules kick in, and if you want to know everything about the sorry-sounding legal term, it’s all spelled out in plain English in a government consumer guide called Fly Rights. Basically: When airlines have exhausted all other options, they have to start picking which customers they’ll bump, and explain their reasoning in writing. Usually it’s based on the fare paid (whoever paid the least gets bumped first), but other factors can be weighed. Airlines do still have to get the unfortunate bumpees to the destination on the next available flight and pay them compensation pegged to the length of the delay.
So, Delta could legally bump the couple and their children but they did not compensate them, or even refund their money, and they had to arrange their own new booking.
They did not get a refund, Mr Schear said, and were forced to book a hotel room that night before buying three more plane tickets the following day.
They filmed the encounter with airport staff and posted it on YouTube. Mr Schear is heard asking a staff member: ‘I’m going to be in jail?’
Mr Schear can be heard stating: ‘Well, you should have thought of (that) before you oversold the flight. I bought that seat.’
He told CBS2: ‘We never thought it was going to get to the point where they were actually getting us all off the flight. As we were leaving the plane, there’s four or five passengers waiting for our seat. The bottom line is, they oversold the flight.’