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Delta video revisits controversial child seating incident from 2017

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Delta video revisits controversial child seating incident from 2017
Research
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Gary Leff Chief Financial Officer | View from the Wing

A video showing a Delta flight attendant threatening to have a passenger’s children taken away by the government has recently gone viral, amassing millions of views. However, this incident is not new; it originally occurred on April 23, 2017. The situation arose shortly after the widely publicized David Dao incident on United Airlines, heightening sensitivities around passenger treatment.

The family involved was traveling from Maui to Los Angeles on an oversold flight. Their older son had taken an earlier flight, and they intended to use his seat for their two-year-old child. However, since the older son did not show up for the scheduled flight, Delta reassigned his seat to a standby passenger.

Delta's stance was that the no-show status of the original passenger resulted in forfeiture of the seat. According to airline policies, if the family had checked in their older son and used his boarding pass for the younger child—who would not be ID-checked—they might have avoided the issue.

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During the confrontation captured in the video, a Delta representative can be heard saying: “Your wife is going to jail and they’ll take your kids from you.” Faced with these threats, the family agreed to hold their young son as a lap infant but were still removed from the flight. They subsequently booked a hotel room and spent $2,000 for another flight with United Airlines for travel the next day. Although Delta later compensated them financially, technically under airline rules, Delta was not at fault.

The broader context reflects heightened tensions around airline policies following similar incidents during that period. In contrast to this case with Delta Airlines where compensation followed despite procedural correctness, American Airlines has legally asserted that even when customers purchase seats for their children, they are not obligated to honor those reservations or provide refunds.

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