A family flying on United Airlines from Geneva to Newark had their seats scattered when flight 957 swapped Boeing 767 aircraft to one with a different configuration. The two parents, their four year old and their 18-month old were no longer all together in a row like they’d booked.
They received the aircraft change notification and were now:
- Mother and 18-month old together
- Father four rows ahead
- 4-year old diagonally across the aisle one row back behind the mother
The parents spent about an hour on chat with United trying to get two pairs of seats. They understood they wouldn’t all be able to sit together. They just didn’t want to be separated completely from their young child. United moved the father closer but left the 4-year old alone and said they couldn’t do anything further.
At the Gate, an agent took their boarding passes, said they’d work on it, but never followed up. They followed up, and gate agents did make an effort – negotiating with a man who said he refused to move unless compensated. The airline refused to compensate, and he kept his assigned seat. And the airline wasn’t forcing anyone to move.
Eventually, the agent claimed to have a “solution,” handing the family four boarding passes. One was rejected by the gate reader, but the agent told them to “just go,” so they boarded anyway. On the plane, they found that one of the new boarding passes actually belonged to the man who had refused to move—and who was already in his seat. Rather than helping, a flight attendant suggested having the four year old across he aisle and behind a parent was a non-issue.
Another flight attendant took the father’s passport and boarding pass back to the gate agent. The father followed – concerned about having his passport taken from him off the aircraft, in case it wasn’t returned and the plane departed. In the meantime he asked about two empty seats in business class, but was told those are “too expensive.”
The gate agent returned, seating each parent with a child. But a flight attendant threatened “to file an FAA report” because the father “deboarded” by stepping onto the jetbridge to follow his passport.
Along the way, too many people added stress to the situation by claiming “it’s out of our control.” I suspect some of this was related to United using a third party (I assume Swissport) for ground handling in Geneva. Meanwhile, they told a passenger just to board without a valid boarding pass. And they were happy to have a four year old fly solo.
Without assistance, the parents would ultimately have faced a choice: they bought their 18-month old a seat, but one parent could have held the toddler in their lap and given that seat to the four-year old (while the other parent sat in another row). They didn’t have to leave the four year old on their own. But they bought the 18-month old a seat for a reason. That’s a challenging age for a lap infant, especially on a daytime transatlantic flight!
How can United be THAT stupid?
The very fact that the man refused to move away from an unaccompanied child should raise red flags. Anyway, how about moving the father and son to the business class seats but not giving them the perks, just the seats? That seems like a reasonable compromise
Another solution is to argue for a window seat or aisle seat as far forward as possible for both the father and the child. Those seats are more likely to be tradeable for swapping with other passengers then the father could arrange a swap so he and his child could sit together.
Business class seats would have been full. The gate agent should have moved people around in coach as they have the power to do. Flight attendants should leave seating issues to the gate agents.
Too bad for the man’s sake that the FA *didn’t* file that FAA report- that would have drawn the proper attention to the whole mess. Please let the TSA in on the part about pencil whipping boarding passes circus too. Just please don’t threaten to report me to my HOA, lol.
I probably would have done something similar in terms of following the passport.
I only really NEED two things when I travel: my wallet (to pay for stuff), and my passport (to be allowed to travel literally anywhere, including home, requires it). Handing it to someone walking away, ESPECIALLY when I’m boarding an international flight? That’s a hard pill to swallow. Especially so in today’s environment where any accusation of non-citizen status, real or imagined, too often results in a deportation without trial.
Honestly, would he have gotten the passport back if he had not followed? It’s possible his annoying the FAA-report-filing employee actually brought more attention to his situation and kept them from otherwise closing the boarding and/or aircraft door. He may well have done exactly the right thing in a bad situation.
What a mess, and all over a few lousy seats.
You don’t need a passport to fly home, although it may not be a pleasant experience.
Assigned seating is a courtesy. I would have just given the man who didn’t want to move a new seat assignment. He’s welcome to choose a later flight with the seat he wants. (obviously if he PAID for that seat he’s due a refund.)
@Craig_Jones Airlines are not reallz stupid, they are just vile. It-s their nature
The passport is just so the agent has the passenger’s name on paper. Maybe start carrying a photocopy of your passport to give away?
first, United operates GVA-EWR on a 763 and they have 2 versions of it with the difference between a difference of about 50 coach seats and 15 more business class seats. There are differences in how economy plus is configured between 2 and 3 seat sections on the two types. I suspect the issue was a “downgrade” from their “larger” 767-300ER to their “smaller” 767-300ER.
If they did a last minute equipment swap with that type – and flightaware shows all flights within the past week were still on 763s, they created an imbalance in the number of persons in each cabin relative to bookings; they very likely did not sell as many business as the “smaller” aircraft had.
second, the gate agent passed the problem to the FAs who did don’t like to deal w/ seating issues – and they shouldn’t have to.
third, the passport never needed to leave the passenger’s hand. The FA could easily confirm the passenger name and passport info and communicate w/ the gate agent w/o needing the passport.
fourth, United supposedly has great tech and there were undoubtedly indications in the record before the equipment change was processed that they were breaking up a family with small children. All the technology in the world means nothing if you don’t have processes to fix problems and people that won’t.
fifth, the previous administration proposed rules to fix problems that airlines refuse to accommodate small children. It is all the more inexcusable for UA not to do whatever it needed to do given that the seat mess was entirely because of UA’s operational decisions.
the customer should file a complaint with the DOT if UA doesn’t apologize with compensation suitable to the customer.
Customer should file a complaint, a 4 year old should not have to sit next to strangers and strangers shouldn’t have to sit next to an unattended 4 year old. I’d definitely expect some compensation. They should have sat the man and child in business class with all the perks since they( UA) messed up. I definitely would have followed my passport too.
My solution is to not have children.
What a MESS!!!!! Incompetent airline/staff!!!!
United is epitome of disgusting customer service. The may pay compensation to another pax to resolve the issue but been stupid enough. Rather have bad publicity !
@Ron – “The fact the man wouldn’t move from an unaccompanied child should raise red flags”
Sorry, wrong answer. Passenger was well within his right to not move – period.
Passenger was under no obligation to assist UA in correcting its apparent malfeasance. Not indicated in the article, but a safe assumption (certainly safer than YOUR assumption), for all we know, the seat change request would’ve effectively been a downgrade.
@Ron “The very fact that the man refused to move away from an unaccompanied child should raise red flags.”
That was in the news some time ago ( https://www.bbc.com/news/10401416 ) British Airways and other airlines had a policy that adult males were not allowed to sit next to unaccompanied children. BA made an adult male move due to this policy. Unfortunately for BA, he was wealthy, and sued for discrimination. BA caved, settled, and changed their policy.
And frankly, children are *much* more likely to be abused by someone they know compared to a random stranger.
Lmao! An FAA report on the passenger?! No way… More like an FAA report on the airline. HUGE violation to board a passenger with the incorrect boarding pass, especially on an international flight. Let’s not even get started on family seating…. United (the FAs) probably should’ve just stayed quiet on this one and offer that family four new round trip tickets as a gesture of goodwill. Wow, just wow!
Yeah really, an airline could ‘threaten’ to call the FAA on me all they want. The airline is regulated by the FAA, I’m not.
Welp, well handled United (not).
It’s the family’s fault for not flying Delta where everything is handled with industry leading service, customer care, and compassion.
“But they bought the 18-month old a seat for a reason. That’s a challenging age for a lap infant, especially on a daytime transatlantic flight!”
It’s a safety issue, not a convenience issue. Lap infants are not secure and get injured at a higher rate than pretty much everyone else on aircraft.
https://journals.lww.com/pec-online/fulltext/2019/10000/in_flight_injuries_involving_children_on.7.aspx
“Patients who sustained in-flight injuries were younger than those involved in other in-flight medical events, and lap infants were overrepresented among the former (Table 2). Most in-flight injuries occurred on international flights (83.5%), serviced by wide-body aircraft (72%), covering distances of more than 3500 miles, and lasting longer than 6 hours.”
Checks all the boxes for this flight. Maybe just get it out your mind completely that it’s a possibility, particularly for people who actually take the effort to book a seat for a child that technically isn’t required to be in one.
@Gary – out of curiosity, did you reach out to any contacts at United to validate this story? I read the original on Reddit several days back and it bore all of the established hallmarks of being AI generated. Technically perfect grammar in a way that very few people actually use (particularly consistent usage of [age]-year-old rather than, e.g., “4 yo”), little or no abbreviations, no consistent writing voice or tone, and an overreliance on em-dashes. I personally highly suspect the story was fabricated by AI to generate Reddit karma for an account that is then to be sold to advertisers down the line.