Delta First Class Chaos As Parents Arm Kid With Sticker Gun, Leave Seats Trashed

Parents flying Delta first class from Tampa to Atlanta allowed their child to place stickers all over the seating area around them – and leave it that way. After all, they probably had a connection to catch!

Tampa – Atlanta is only 406 miles and seems like a lot of work for a child to accomplish so quickly, but apparently they had the process automated.

It’s a sticker gun type thing. It’s like a hollow stick filled with stickers and you just push it against the paper (or I guess this seat) and the stickers stick immediately. So you could do this in legit less than 60 seconds. It comes with 300 stickers in each stack.

These stickers apparently come off, but would require delaying flights to do so, so it’s likely to mean that the next flight goes out this way. And I’d point out that sitting in first class doesn’t mean you have any.

Straight to jail.
byu/RedEyesAndChiliFries indelta

Over the summer another Delta passenger left their seat in a shocking state with food waste, brown smears, a ripped up safety card. Apparently this was what a child left behind, rather than some sort of lavatory accident.

Please don’t be garbage
byu/whaambaamtymaam indelta

Responsible parents choose what they bring with them to entertain and feed their kids. Some choices are messier than others. And most importantly, they clean up after their kids.

Traveling with children can be challenging, but it’s important to work to set things up for success. Are you picking flight times that match your child’s schedule, or where the kids will be overtired? Do you have things to entertain them, that aren’t too noisy or messy? To be sure ‘things happen’ but there are usually moments during the flight to tidy as well. Here are 11 Game-Changing Rules For Stress-Free Flights With Kids—Other Passengers Will Thank You.

Last year a mother let her child draw all over the seat of a Delta Air Lines flight in order to keep them entertained. They were erasable, and wipes took care of the Crayola drawings. She says that a flight attendant was on edge that the drawings might not come off the side of the aircraft, and off of the back of the tray table in front of them.

Just to show it isn’t always people flying Delta, here a United Airlines passenger pulled down their tray table to find children’s drawings in orange, green, black and blue. Who draws pictures on their seat back tray, instead of using paper?

Unfortunately, you cannot assume that someone else will clean up after you. Between domestic flights on U.S. airlines, with planes not on the ground for long, probably nobody will. The longer it stays, the more likely it is to stay for good.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. I just don’t believe children who can’t fly without constant adult supervision or handicap/disabled people who have to rely on others should be allowed to fly. What happens in an emergency with an unaccompanied minor or a fat, morbidly obese person blocking the exit? I remember flying when TWA when I was 15 and there was an emergency diversion due to an engine issue. We had to spend the night at a hotel. I wasn’t an unaccompanied but getting me a hotel room was an issue since I had no credit card and couldn’t legally check into a hotel.

  2. @FNT, you get them out if you can get to them, particularly the obese. It just is what it is. Particularly when we all know people are selfishly dragging their bags with them slowing the process. My biggest complaints are the obese or elderly sitting in the emergency exit rows.

    Anyways, I would pay a premium to have an adults only flight without children.

  3. Within the parameters of potential unpleasant circumstances caused by kids in domestic first class, I’d place stickers at the lower end of the spectrum. No unpleasant odors, no biohazard, no attraction for insects which may have taken up residence on the plane, etc. Really just an aesthetic issue, and a fairly mild one at that.

    Not to say that this sort of thing is to be encouraged. Ideally parents wouldn’t allow it. But the times we live in and all…

  4. I knew Tim Dunn’s parents should have supervised him more closely when they finally took him on his dream Delta flight.

  5. Those stickers peel off pretty easily, but still terrible parents, should be added to no-fly list!!

  6. Send the parents a bill for the additional cleaning. Really tired of parents that think they’re there to indulge their children.

  7. Agree with George – bill the parents the cleanup fee. Nothing outrageous like the cost of pulling the plane from flight, but maybe $100-$200 for the additional time and labor.

  8. They have a no fly list, use it. I know this is not the end of the world but this behavior needs to stop. The all about me attitude is just rude.

  9. This is a huge deal and the parents should not be allowed to fly on that airline for atleast a year.and should be responsible for the cost of clean up. This delays flights and causes other pass to miss their connections. What about the cost to the airlines, who have a financial loss due to missed connections or the flight attendants who may not get paid for time on the ground, All because selfish parents can’t control their children.

  10. These are the same type of people who don’t return their shopping carts to the corrals. The attitude of “someone else gets paid to do it”!
    And as the old(?) adage goes: Money don’t buy class.

  11. Recently, I have been baffled that when those flight attendants give the same old speech about floating devices under our chairs for accidents that almost never happened, they don’t tag on an extra minute elucidating manners on an airplane. I feel like a lot of people just don’t know. That should be things you are not allowed to do, so. Passengers are protected from each other. Like putting bare feet or feet at all on the chair rest in front of you. Kicking the seat in front of you. Reclining on short flights. Playing loud noise without earphones.

  12. It’s the same at any suburban Marriott or Hyatt hotel during sports season on weekends. With no business travelers the hotel offers cheap rates to sport teams. So, parents get drunk at the bar and sit in the bar while their kids run around the hotel, play floor hockey, and do whatever. Hotel staff shrug their shoulders because these teams are buy 50 rooms every Friday and Saturday night. Same for airlines letting everyone and anyone board early by claiming extra time. If you can walk through the airport with bags on your own, you are not disabled and do not need extra time to board an aircraft.

  13. Dress nicely for complimentary upgrade to first class: a Tampa lady will pull on her best be-dazzled jeans for a very good chance of a very reasonable low-fee upgrade to a first-class seat which correspondingly has been pre-bedazzled in the most trendiest of childish stickers.
    I woudn’t scoff at the small but rich community of DIY jeweled clothing and interior decor and the passengers who thrive upon respect for their bedazzled lifestyle and bedazzled stickered community.

  14. I see this sort of behavior practically every day and it really bugs me. First– in almost all cases, it’s NOT the child’s fault, especially if they’re under (perhaps) age 7 (or so) — though for the most part, I blame the parents. Several years ago, I was on a flight and the kid was going nuts for no reason at all. (Apparently the dad at some point had said “No” to the child and the child was rebelling. Imagine that?). The senior flight attendant (nicely) asked the mother to please calm the child down as he was causing a loud disturbance. She responded to the F/A by asking “What do you mean by that?” and before the F/A could respond, the parent informed the F/A that she “never disciplines her child” as doing so “creates negativity & fosters self-doubt” — which “smothers the child’s innate “Joie de vivre.” I’ll leave it at that.

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