An American Airlines passenger found that a chld took the aisle seat he says he paid extra for, and had words with the family over it – but a flight attendant seems to have come down on the family’s side.
Osaac Summer took a redeye American Airlines flight. A young girl was in his aisle seat so, her family said, he’d need to take a nearby window seat. That way the family wouldn’t be separated.
@lalawright2 Respectfully they should’ve asked him if it was coo first cause he did pay for that seat.
He… was not amused, declaring “I don’t care about your daughter” and told the family, “Stay in your lane and in your seat!” It could have been handled more diplomatically, but it was his assigned seat right?
Except that he says a flight attendant told him the family was entitled to the seat, “She got on the plane before you” and told him “you are being the bad guy.” He says he was even threatened with ejection from the flight over it.
Afraid the flight was going to be delayed, another passenger offered the man their aisle seat. And a flight attendant apologized to… the family, “I’m so sorry you had to go through that. Your daughter is really beautiful.”
That is not how this works! That is not how any of this works!
Live and Let’s Fly says that he doesn’t “think families should be permitted to buy basic economy tickets” since they don’t come with free seat assignments, and those are “necessary for families with young children; therefore, basic economy class tickets should not be sold to families traveling with children who cannot be separated.”
I don’t think that’s the right take here.
- Basic economy fares are literally intended by the airlines for price-sensitive leisure travelers (and families are often among the most price-sensitive). Airlines are trying to segment those customers from business travelers who will spend more money.
- In fact, families buying basic economy are entitled to be seated together on American Airlines!
American was actually the first to commit to family seating in its customer service plan. That’s a commitment which is enforceable by the Department of Transportation.
- They will “guarantee children 14 and under will be seated adjacent to an accompanying adult at no additional cost, including Basic Economy fares” provided that passengers are all booked on the same reservation (otherwise they won’t know to seat everyone together) and adjacent seats are actually available to assign when buying the tickets.
- Basic economy passengers are instructed to “skip choosing seats for the entire reservation” to have them assigned.
Of course it is important to check when buying tickets for a flight, traveling with small children, that there are actually seats open beside each other! It’s important to make sure the seats do get assigned, if relying on the airline to handle it for you. And it’s important to garden your reservation and make sure nothing changes between the time you book and when it’s time to travel.
Sometimes you’re stuck with a last minute flight change. Maybe your original flight cancelled and you got rebooked, or your first flight is delayed and you need to have your connection rebooked, or there’s a change to a smaller aircraft. That can put you on a plane without seats by your kids – and that needs to be solved.
Gate agents are rushed, and often it is agent singular rather than plural (a domestic flight less than 80% full is only going to have one agent to take care of all the duties involved in getting a flight out on time). So they may not be as helpful as you’d like, although still try to enlist their assistance. Then ask a flight attendant for help.
Most of the time other passengers aren’t going to want to sit next to your unsupervised children! Just consider offering the better seat that your family has in trade (an aisle, or at least a window), rather than the worse seat (like a middle). And if there are two parents, consider than in a pinch one parent can sit with a single child you may not all have to be seated together.
While I understand families wanting to stay together, I am also tired of entitled parents assuming they can get whatever they want at the expense of others. The guarantee should be that at least one parent will be seated with a child. If there are two children, then each child will be seated with a parent. There should be no guarantee that two parents will be seated with a single child. I hope AA at least compensated him for the seat he paid for.
I enjoy when Gary goes after his competition like this. Like, watch out, Matt, Gary’s onto you!
And I fully expect some commenter to ‘wish for the good ole days’ when folks smacked their children. Y’all, that ain’t right. You just traumatize an entire generation. Like, doncha know those kids grow up and might be responsible for your care when you’re older… think ahead.
It seems that if a passenger has paid extra for his seat, that the airline should be required to find him an equivalent (or better) seat. If that’s not possible, then the airline should automatically refund the surcharge that the passenger paid for his specific seat.
I also believe that an entire family is not entitled to be seated together. Rather, the rule should be that every child is entitled to have at least one family adult seated next to him/her.
It seems there is a paradox here. AA guarantees family co-seating with basic, and deliberately relies on the gate to sort it out, which runs in to direct conflict with other adjacent pax who have paid for their seat assignment, specifically aisles which are the only seats where larger or claustrophobic pax have any chance of mental survival in torture tubes. Families pre-board which prevents the pax that paid for the seat from claiming it, and therefore subjects them to the post-9/11 flight crew national security complex, the only remedy for which is to suffer that flight, deplane, or have your aadvantage account black-flagged should you contest your right to consume the product you paid for. Commercial Air Travel in the United States is personal combat, everyone for themselves.
Moral of the story: never fly in the back. Ever. Never fly on a day where you have to be at your destination. Ever. If you get downgraded or lose access to the product you paid for, walk off the plane. Take pictures of the seats and people involved during the argument. Ship your luggage by ups or fedex so you only have a roll-aboard and can walk off the plane. Don’t leave the secured area until you have reported what happened to a uniformed employee whose name and id number you document, and take their picture without them knowing you have done so. Then attempt to get them to rebook you. You de-escalated the airline’s violation of their own Contract of Carriage. It’s only fair that you be Re-Accomodated without physical violence or injury. If you are not Re-Accomodated peacefully, post the circumstances to the Xitter/Social team for that airline then call reservations. Again, you de-escalated. You are the hero that needs help.
What ticks me and many others off is the man picked that seat and paid for it. Unless the airline’s contract of carriage says that the airline reserves the right to toss him out of his seat to accommodate someone else who did NOT PICK AND PAY FOR THAT SEAT! The passenger who wanted that seat…should have bought and paid for THAT SEAT FIRST. One day, someone is going to sue the brains out of the airline and, hopefully, WIN!
@Hagbard Celine — That’s a whole lotta ‘never flying.’ How about, set low expectations? Like, plan for the worst, hope for the best; build in time, if you need it; have back-up plans in place; yes, read the fine print, get travelers insurance that actually covers likely scenarios (not the nonsense, 50% of your Trip affected AIG scam, or the over 72 hours delay required, which is absurd, and rarely happens as you’re usually a day or two late even when a catastrophe happens). Finally, as much as we should, nobody reads the Contract of Carriage; it’s an adhesion contract (take it or leave, no meaningful negotiation, etc.) We all try our best, some try harder than others. Good luck out there.
Name the waitress. She needs firing.
@Fred — Ah, the ole ‘burn the witch’ reaction. Timeless!
Whenever my wife and I fly together I am always asked if I can switch seats. This is despite my wife sitting next to me. I quickly tell the flight attendant and appropriate that I am sitting next to my wife. Is their a seat for her where you ask that I sit? I want her next to me. This shuts them up really fast.
American DOES NOT guarantee the entire family will be seated together. I would have demanded that the gate agent come onboard. He paid for an aisle seat and he should get an aisle seat and if it was towards the front of coach (more expensive) he should have been given a front aisle coach seat.
Typical parents today that think the world should accommodate them. Want your family to sit together? Pay for seats. Or just take a trip in your car where sitting together as a family will never be an issue. Like people did back in the 1970s.
@Rahul Iyer — You must seem very different from your wife. Like, big age difference? It seems others presume you are each traveling separately by appearance alone. Or, they just think you’re an easy mark, a pushover. Glad to hear that you don’t let them take advantage. Stick with wifey!
@George Romey — Since you mentioned the 70s, it kinda feels like we’re re-living the late 70s, early 80s, like by global and domestic politics/economics, and somewhat ‘culture.’ A major difference, though, you don’t see too many ‘families’ with 10 children these days. ‘In this economy’… sheesh!
Why didn’t the man say to the mother,
“How much cash do you have? I’ll sell you the seat for $200.”
What’s the problem with AA secretly assigning BE seats to families at the time of reservation? They don’t have to tell the pax that they’ve been pre-assigned, so they can get still get the BE thrill at check-in, but it would remove this drama for the GAs/FAs, families and displaced innocents.
If anyone should have been asked to walk off the plane for a later flight, it should have been the family, not the dude that paid for his aisle seat. Yes it may not be the best look and I would feel badly for the child but that mistake is on the airline. Thankfully a good Samaritan resolved this issue. Not the flight attendant.
@Maryland — I’m with you on wishing for more ‘good Samaritans’ and wish that more folks would recall the message of that story: “True neighborly love extends to everyone, even those considered outsiders or enemies.” Meanwhile, there are far too many hyper-vocal, self-proclaimed ‘Christians’ out there preaching the exact opposite, daily (Fear the stranger/immigrant! Exile your neighbors!)
This guy should have had his entire seat charge refunded. The flight attendant should be fired and never allowed to ever work in the industry.
This is despicable behavior on the airline’s part.
It’s real easy folks: your butt should match the number on your ticket. Is it that hard?
The law should be if you paid extra for a seat and do not get to use it for any reason, you should be refunded 10x what you paid. This would ensure airlines provide you what you paid for.
@Billy Bob — So true. Also, when the speed limit is 55, but you go 58, you’re now ‘an illegal.’ As Jim Carrey’s character in the 1997 film ‘Liar Liar’ says: “QUIT BREAKING THE LAW…”
Not just on airplanes, but everywhere, people who choose to have children expect their choices to be subsidized by everyone else.
Not understanding the concept of “rules” or “procedures” and just deciding every situation based on a circular argument about who “deserves” things more is the signature trait of stupid women. And this AA flight attendant sounds like a stupid woman, but I repeat myself.
I think in many cases these days, people don’t push back hard enough in the right way. If you do it in the right way, respectfully, you can easily win in these circumstances.
My response here:
“According to my boarding pass, I am assigned Seat XXC. I suggest we get the Captain involved in this discussion or I can walk to the front of the aircraft myself and has him if you don’t feel that is what we should do here.”
I win. End of case. Captain sides with me.
PS. And if, in that case, I am removed from the flight, I get a check for about $500k from American.
@Goforride — Yet… why do the tech-broligarchs (and the ‘supremacists’) seem so concerned about ‘population decline’ in the West? (They mean, white folks not having enough white babies…)
Listen, I’m with George Carlin on this… ‘the planet is fine, the people are…” So, as long as they’re not hurting themselves or others, let people live and love who and how they wanna live and love. Have kids. Don’t. Whatever.
That said, for all our sakes, it sure would be nice if we actually had a social safety net, like, a strong ‘floor,’ because they say it often ‘takes a village.’ Yet, these days, I’m not seeing too many ‘villages’ supporting the kids… Recall the proverb about the ‘child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.’ Yeah, we may wanna ‘do better’ so that doesn’t happen. Or not, whatever. Few seem to care anymore anyway.
AA is obviously wrong here.
@Mike — Do you honestly believe in the ‘heat of the moment’ that you’d be able to fully articulate that entire ‘legalese’ message to your ‘opponent’ on that flight? Nah. Not a chance. Good luck, though. Also, how bold of you to presume that the captain *wants* to get involved. You distract them from their pre-flight, you’ll all get thrown off that flight. ‘Let god sort ’em out.’
Only in America. Why does it seem our US airlines play these games?
This nonsense would not fly on any of the big Asian airlines. Your butt will be in the seat that matches your ticket at takeoff.
As a kid that flew in the 1970s before you paid for a seat airlines basically guaranteed what AA guarantees today. Each child(ren) would be seated next to a parent but the entire family maybe not together. Even back in the 70s Eastern had discounted fares (presumably allowed by the CBA) for example families. We usually were split between parents and never did my parents but up a fuss.
@Dirk Disco — Speaking of (East) Asian airlines, isn’t it incredible that Singapore can board a fully-loaded a350, 777, etc. in like under 15 minutes? Clearly, there is little-to-no arguing over seats. Like, SQ usually doesn’t even start boarding its wide-body aircraft until 30 minutes prior to departure; oh, and security is done at the gate (SIN). Wow, just wow. Yeah, that’s a different dimension of ‘efficiency.’ I presume it’s part culture, but also, people have to ‘want’ it. Maybe someday in the USA we could have that (and high speed rail, too, psh), but I wouldn’t hold our breath.
@George Romey — Well, it was the era of ‘latchkey kids,’ after all. I do recall TWA splitting my family up in St. Louis on more than one occasion. They practically boarded us like a game of Tetris. Fun times. Maybe the key difference is that back then we didn’t have smartphones to record these incidents, or the internet to instantaneously share our thoughts with strangers around the world. Hmm.
Musical Chicago: “When you’re good to Mama. Mama’s good to you.” Personally, I try to be extra extra extra nice to stewardesses or stewards. They have the power.
What was the sex of the flight attendant and why would the FA say the daughter was “really beautiful?” That seems more than strange. Meanwhile, back to the original argument. The passenger was totally within his rights to ask for the assigned seat he paid for. What if it was a family of 6 or 8? Would all the passengers who came after they were seated have to give up their seats so the group could sit together?
The man paid for the seat and presumably boarded when he was supposed to. The seat should have been his. Period. If AA had wanted/needed “him” to switch, they should have offered compensation ahead of time – along with asking.
FWIW, Delta did similar with us – removing my adult son from a seat so a daughter could sit next to her mother. They promised extra points – and ended up giving us nothing. They also changed our seats without cause on a different flight – taking away two windows on an overnight flight (keeping one) and giving us a middle and center seats instead. I will no longer fly Delta at all, even questionable whether I would as a “last resort.”
The more I hear about issues with US airlines, the more I’m glad I can usually choose a foreign option, esp for long flights. Domestically it’s difficult though
Have a very hard time believing any story that quotes a FA as having said “but she got on first”. Just draws doubt on the entire story. Seems like a clickbait story created to cause outrage.
@Other — Yes! The ‘golden rule’ may be said many different ways but its message is the core of nearly all faiths.
@David — Clickbait?? At VFTW?! No… never…. And if you believe that, I’ve gots a deal for ya on an extended warranty for your motor vehicle…
@1990 – I suspect main reason why SQ can load a widebody in 15 mins is because Asians are more efficient than Americans.
Everytime I deplane in the US I am amazed at the “me first” attitude I see from my fellow passengers are. When it is my turn to step into the isle, if I have an overhead luggage, I look “behind me” and if there are passengers who are ready to go, I wave them by until there is a pause caused by another passenger who has to get access the overhead. I then get my stuff. Usually this means I get off the plane 15 seconds later but it makes the entire process much smoother.
Easy solution, just grab another aisle seat and tell the rightful passsenger that the flight attendants are not honoring seat assignments today.
@Mike:
I would’ve asked for the purser first. Most flight attendants know if one askes for the purser rather than the captain they kind of know their way around – much, much more than the average flier.
@1990: While of course its impossible to be prepared for all events, there are some such as these which can be prepared for.
As I mentioned above, asking for the purser rather than the captain might go a long way. Explain the situation properly, eloquently and most important, respectfully without raising one’s voice.
Finally, taking a few deep breaths helps out A LOT!
Of COURSE “she got on first.” People with children always get to board before everyone else, so how can that be considered a metric for who’s entitled to a seat? The best and only metric? WHO PAID TO SIT IN THAT SEAT.
@Disgruntled American — Yeah, that’s about right. Well, thank you for at least still ‘trying.’
@Jacobin777 — I’m with you; again, at least that would be ‘trying.’ We could all do better.
If you can’t afford children then DON’T HAVE THEM!
If you want to be seated together, pay for seat assignments. It’s as simple as that.
Signed, a parent who flies with their children
I am sick and tired of ALL AIRLINES hustling and figuring ways to squeeze the most $$ out of every passenger, reducing seat sizes to squeeze in more seats etc. Secondly the ‘power’ flight attendants and even gate agents to toss anyone. Third the failure of the Government to intervene with a set absolutely no BS rules on passenger treatment (Civil Rights?????) Set a standard rule of conduct for both passenger and airlines. Fourth the arbitrary carry on baggage size. Too many airlines apply the size differently. Finally I’m lucky I fly in the highest class available but note I’m still frightened of the power of gates agents and flight crews to screw with you.
@Rick — Sounds fair and reasonable. *only in ‘blue’ states (for now)
The apology to the family is what really burns. Unnecessary and inconsiderate to the “paying” upgrade guest.
I had an overnight flight from Newark, NJ to Dublin, Ireland, and months beforehand, I booked aisle seat 22J in the 3rd row of Premium Economy. Premium Economy had 4 rows.
I thought I boarded fairly early. But when I got to my seat, a woman was kneeling on my seat (like it was hers) and facing the row behind her (#23) to talk to the flight attendant standing next to the 4th and last row. This was just after Covid. I wasn’t a happy camper.
When I explained that it was my seat, I discovered that she was in cahoots with the attendant. Her seat was 23J (not 22J), but her daughter had the window seat next to me, 22K, could I please switch. And the attendant backed her up. I caved, but I regretted it immediately. I never even asked why her daughter couldn’t move from 22K to 23K – my bad.
On the flight, every time the cart came from Economy to Premium Economy, it rammed my seat. I was woken up repeatedly. And at mealtime, anything that I would’ve had to eat had run out for my row.
So I vowed – never again. And decided that the next time I’d put the onus on the flight attendant, who shouldn’t be taking sides nor putting another passenger in a defensive position.
I am a member of the WFBF (want first, buy first) club. I’m big and as economy seats have shrunk, I just stopped buying economy.
Now that doesn’t mean I won’t end up there during irregular ops, but I won’t be there if I have any say in the matter.
I am also particular about where I sit, and not having to play the upgrade game means I can usually pick the type of seat I like (aisle, not bulkhead). Or if it’s a 1×2 regional jet, I like a seat on the 1 side.
I try to be understanding that people may well have been split up by irrops, but that is best handled by taking assigned seats and then negotiating with nearby people, offering the best of your scattered seats rather than the worst. It seems today that people will squat in the seat and expect me to take a far worse seat. Given the airlines decided to monetize seating choices, the airlines needs to deal with this and not put passengers on the spot. If my boarding pass says 2D (or 17C), I’m sitting in 2D (or 17C) and you can go sit in whatever number your boarding pass says.
I also thought I was an oddball in that I will not block the whole plane trying to get my bag out. If I’m in row 2 and I can get my bags sorted out while they are moving the jetbridge into place, great. If not, I will usually get my underseat bag, move into row 1 or 3 so the window passenger in my row can get out, and then when there is a gap, I’ll fuss with my overhead bag. So I’m 20th off the plane instead of 4th, not really much difference. I can walk fast and beat the people I let off early anyway. 🙂
@makfan — WFBF! @Gene will be so happy to hear of this! Those ‘1’ seats on the 1-2 configured regional jets (CRJ/ERJ) are indeed ‘fun.’ Keep up the ‘fast walking’…it’s healthy!
Again the mentality of I should get Frontier pricing but PanAm like service. How about we require airlines to charge fares that cover the cost of operation for that seat? Do you really think you’d get a $49 fare to Orlando?