Delta Kicked Ann Coulter Out of Her Pre-Reserved Extra Legroom Seat

by Gary Leff

Delta came onboard Ann Coulter’s flight tonight and booted her from her pre-assigned extra legroom seat without explanation.

I suspect David Dao might disagree with that characterization. If she was talking merely about SkyMiles she’d have a better case.

Apparently she was moved out of extra legroom seats. And she’s tall.

She shared with us the flight attendant who insisted she move.

Twitter then exploded with a discussion of whether the flight attendant’s race had anything to do with her objection to moving (as opposed to, you know, being given less leg room).

Ms. Coulter decided to shame the passenger who received her seat. Twitter exploded with a discussion of whether the passenger was a woman of color and that was the real reason Coulter objected to moving (as opposed to, you know, being given less leg room).

Ann is also frustrated with the results of her Speedtest App. She wishes that Delta would hurry up with its installs of Gogo 2Ku satellite internet.

In which Ann Coulter reveals she uses Seat Guru and Expertflyer Seat Alerts.

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

  3. Good for her! I don’t think it had anything to do with whether or not it was a passenger of color who took her seat, because frankly she looked white to me – I didn’t see any difference in shade.

  6. I am surprised Ann Coulter doesn’t fly first-class. Admittedly, I don’t think she is as hot of a commodity now as she was 10 years ago, but all those books, speaker fees and royalties — she remains very popular among the conservative industrial complex — have to give her enough money for domestic first-class.

  7. Weird story, for sure. In the zillions of flights I’ve taken on many airlines, I’ve never been involuntarily moved from one seat to another. A handful of times I’ve been asked to move by a flight attendant (and many more times by individuals), but it’s never been without choice. To move a pax without providing a reason is, obviously, bad customer service.

    Perhaps the most interesting part of your post is the horrified look on her seatmates’ faces when Ann is snapping their photo. Kind of like “what the f-bomb are you doing taking our picture?”

  8. We only have her side of the story. No doubt things will clear up once Delta announces what really happened.

  9. This is obviously FAKE NEWS, planted by the liberal media, to discredit Delta.

  10. BTW, did she get the passengers’ permission before taking their photo and posting it publicly? It is generally airline policy that you may not take photos of other passengers without their permission. That’s enough to get her kicked off the flight or even banned from Delta.

  11. FNT, if Ann Coulter flew first class, do you promise not to go after her for being an elitist conservative?

    Beyond that, it’s not your business what class she chooses to fly. The only legitimate concerns here are whether Delta honors its agreements with PAX and whether the FA discriminated against Coulter for her political views or her race.

  12. Sure do not need that arrogant SOB running Qatar Airlines to point out how screwed up our legacy airlines have become!

    The closest I came to this nonsense was on American, who I exclusively fly domestically. Returning from BOS on Saturday after Thanksgiving, apparently equipment was changed; thus, I lost my pre-booked bulkhead aisle and dumped into a middle seat in the back. Complaining to AA, I received a refund for that seat, and complementary miles.

    However, to Ann and others, I would strongly suggest, whether or not Congress ever gets its act in gear, once you are in your seat, don’t give it up. This is the epitome of total BS and what happens when we voluntarily destroy a former competitive industry.

  14. I get suspicious when the emotion overcomes what I at least THOUGHT were the facts. Is she saying in her tweet that she got screwed over by a hostile gate-agents union? Maybe it’s changed, but I thought Delta was largely a non-union airline, and I certainly thought that would include gate agents? Shouldn’t the person in her position get her facts straight, or did I miss a unionization somewhere?

    And I know it’s a pet peeve and she was upset, but somebody who says they’re in the communications Field like she is needs to know how to spell “air marshal!”

  15. As much as I can’t stand her public persona, she deserves an explanation for this and should have been given an upgrade. Her politics and mine could not be further apart, but I’m really doubting the race of the woman who was given her seat has anything to do with it. Just another airline handling things in the worst possible manner. At least America is #1 in something.

  16. Tough call now for trump deplorables and their empathy gap, this time it hit close to home.

    Obviously now it’s totally justifiable to cry discrimination.

    So here’s the million dollar question…continue to defend big business or is it now ok to badmouth delta???

  17. We definitely don’t have all the facts yet so it seems a bit too easy to pass judgement, but based solely on the information in the article, it seems like Delta is at fault and handled the situation quite poorly.

    That being said, if this had to happen to someone, I couldn’t possibly think of a better person more deserving of this fate. If only the flight attendant had known what she was getting in to…

  18. If I played Gate Agent on that flight, I would have denied her boarding (for no reason other than she’s particularly annoying).

  19. Owh c’mon… this is murica! It happens everyday! At least they didn’t beat and drag her out of her seat. Lets make Delta Great Again!

  20. Who knows the reason, but I won’t shed a tear for the racist bitch being involuntarily downgraded. Next time splurge some of that Trump slush fund money you got stumping for him and buy first class. Or use Skypesos.

  21. Could it have been an equipment change? That is the only thing I can think of.

  22. This was not a Comfort+ seat. Look at the row placards in the first picture. Clearly this row was marked blue, not red (i.e., regular economy).

  23. On a more serious note though, if you get involuntarily downgraded from a first class or premium economy seat for which you paid extra money for (ie. not a free upgrade), aren’t they required to reimburse you for the extra amount that you paid over and above the comparable cost of a regular economy seat at the time of purchase? It sounds like this didn’t happen, according to her…

  25. You mean AC doesn’t know the terms of the contract of carriage? How does that even happen? (Or, that’s what I read when others react emotionally to numerous other heavy-handed behaviors of “airline policy.”
    And don’t all airlines now have rules prohibiting taking pics inside (or was that just me mis-remembering stuff Lucky wrote regarding Air France and/or Lufthansa and/or KLM?)?

  26. I wonder if she got a battlefield upgrade to first which wasn’t communicated properly. Then the other person was op opped to comfort plus because economy was full.

  27. She implied via photo that the “woman” took her seat to sit next to her family. See her smug look and outraged faces of family members.

  30. If Delta is like American Airlines (they may not be) and you don’t have a wealth of mileage in their FF program, even if you pre-book a premium seat, it says in the ‘fine print’ that the seat is not guaranteed should a mileage privileged passenger come in after you. The passenger with major mileage gets the seat and you get booted out. That’s why if I need to fly, I go with United or Virgin. If I pay for my extra leg room on either airline, it’s my seat and someone with more miles doesn’t get to take it from me.

  31. Anybody who takes on airlines for arbitrary and capricious behavior is ok in my book (regardless of political views). The only reason that DL did not drag her off the plane is that she agreed to involuntarily relinquish her seat. And the only reason she did was that she didn’t want Dr. Dao treatment.

    Glad to see this behavior continues as the pressure keeps building for overdue common sense consumer regulation.

  32. sorry but a bit confused, the photo with the FA appears Ann is sitting on left side of the plane ( if I were to have taken a photo of Ann facing her she would appear on the right of the photo), photo of pax that supposedly took her seat appears to be seated on the right side of the plane what am I missing? was the FA photo taken after she moved to another seat?

  33. She’s particularly angry because she needed the legroom for manspreading. @Greg, it’s not just the Adam’s apple!

  35. FINALLY, Delta did something right. It was completely inappropriate for Ann Coulter to shame the woman that was given the seat. If she has a gripe it’s between her and Delta not another passenger that deserves her privacy. Delta should have kicked her off the plane for taking pictures of other passengers and posting them. It just shows you what a selfish bit……h she is. Good work Delta but next time ban her from the airline.

  36. A likely explanation: Some party boarded after Coulter was seated and Delta moved her to accommodate that other party so they could sit together (either across the aisle or an adjacent row). The same thing happened to me except a gate employee handed me a new boarding pass with the reassigned seat, so I knew what was going on as opposed to getting kicked out of my seat by an FA who might not know the reason for playing musical chairs. In any case, Coulter should receive a handful of Skypesos as an apology (I got 2K miles from AA for the unwanted last minute switcheroo).

  37. Another snowflake can’t take a little hardship in life. What a complainer! Get a real job and stop stealing from the airlines! I bet her father, who was an illegal immigrant, taught her how to be an attention whore and steal for a living.

  38. @ Mark – If you ever get kicked out of your Seatguru-chosen, extra legroom, bulkhead aisle seat so someone else can sit next to their lil old granny or whatever, you’d probably be all over Twitter too whining about the injustice of it all.

  39. @chancer.. first of all I would never take another passenger’s picture without their permission and post it on Twitter and second Ann Coulter should have paid for first class or comfort plus if she wanted more leg room. She now has something in common with Merrick Garland. I think Delta did what they felt was appropriate.

  40. The Wretched old tranny needs to be shown what decent people think of nasty, intolerant hag’s like that, male and female. In any other modern country any one expressing such extreme right-wing views expressed openly here in the US would be chased down the streets by crowds, booed loudly everywhere they went, trapped in their houses and never able to go out and show their face in public. If they went to church the pastor would have them stand up and shame them for trying to take away 22 million people’s Health Care which is hitlerian genocide.

    But here in this country the frog is boiled with the right-wing having had its vile, nasty, intolerant way for so long that is just accepted that 30% of the public are vicious nasty monsters. Then look who they elect President!

    People need to put down their phones and social media banality and realize that their country has been taken over by the most extreme right-wing on the planet.

  42. Since she so often puts her foot in her mouth, that ought to free up some extra leg room. But I do fault the airlines,. They really should have put her in a dog kennel and flown her with the other baggage

  43. Greg: Or you and your fellow snowflakes can man up and accept that sometimes your party wins and sometimes it loses. Quit blaming your fellow Americans and quit blaming the Russians. If you still need to blame someone, then Hillary Clinton would be the best you can do. She and the DNC stole the nomination and failed to win the election.

    Next time, get a better candidate or get a better thief.

  44. You must of been a real twit about this small matter! Seems like you make a real jerk out of yourself by your rant?? What age are you?? 2?

  45. I thought photographing passengers and crew was banned under airline policies. What recourse, if any, might Delta have against Coulter for violating this policy?

  46. She’s mad, so she violates the privacy of 3 passengers. Klassy.

    Seems like SHE is the poor delicate #Snowflake. Just can’t get her legs to fit in an ordinary row.

  47. I have just read of this incident here on the NEWS in Australia, and most likely the whole world knows now about Delta’s shameful customer Service ! It should not matter who buys a ticket! Young, old, white skin or black skin, they all pay with the same money! And if a boarding pass with seat allocation has been issued, then this is your seat, o.k.? Unless there was some sort of real reason for Emergency, in any case, the person who was seated first should have been upgraded to business or first class. Und most importantly, should have received humble apologies from Delta’s staff, as it is customary for good public Relations.
    Delta’s apologies stated on Twitter afterwards are meaningless, too late to say “sorry”.
    Needless to say, it could happen to anyone again, when flying with Delta Airlines in the future, unless you avoid them altogether.

  48. I flew from Hawaii to Michigan twice in last year to see my elderly parents. Almost every flight that I had booked Delta Comfort had Economy Class passengers reassigned next to me. I paid extra money for seats these people got for no added cost. I did not pitch a fit or take picture’s of the passengers getting the free upgrade.
    Man-up Ann, there are real problems in the world.

  49. I agree with Mark, this woman should’ve never taken pictures of the passengers and posted them on Twitter. Ann’s big mouth and big persona have gotten in the way at times of abiding by the Golden Rule. How would she feel if they have her some other person’s seat and that person got upset and took Ann’s picture? She’d be suing. Mark my words.

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