Brian Schear was traveling with his wife Brittany and two of their young children on a Delta Airlines flight from Hawaii to Los Angeles when they were told they’d be sent to jail if they did not give up their two-year-old son’s seat, they claim.
According to the Schears, they were also told their children would be taken away from them. The family is now demanding an apology from Delta.
Video of the incident was captured and uploaded to YouTube and it is the latest in a recent string of viral airline-related incidents.
What Happened?
Brian Schear claims that a Delta airline staff employee said: “You have to give up the seat or you’re going to jail, your wife is going to jail and they’ll take your kids from you?”
He videoed the confrontation and uploaded the footage to YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7pM8IyxpTc
The family were set to travel from Hawaii to Los Angeles last week when they were told they needed to give up Grayson’s seat.
Brittany Schear told ABC: “As a mother, you have a one-year-old and a two-year-old – it doesn’t matter whether that’s true or false. It put fear in me.”
The Delta Airlines employee is said to have told the parents that Grayson – who had a car seat on top of his seat – would have to sit on one of his parents’ laps.
After a back and forth debate, the parents agreed to Delta’s request, but were suddenly told to deboard the plane. They did not receive a refund and were forced to book a hotel room that night and buy three additional plane tickets the following day, according to the couple.
In the video, you can hear Brian Schear asking, “I’m going to be in jail?” He also tells the Delta employee, “Well, you should have thought of (that) before you oversold the flight. I bout that seat.”
He told CBS2: “We never thought it was going to get to the point where they were actually getting us all off the flight. As we were leaving the plane, there’s four or five passengers waiting for our seat. The bottom line is, they oversold the flight.”
At first, the two youngest children were going to sit on the laps of their parents. However, when the the couple’s teenage son chose to travel on another flight – with a seat already booked – they seated Grayson in his seat instead.
Delta released a statement to CBS saying: “We are sorry for what this family experienced. Our team has reached out, and we will be talking with them to better understand what happened and come to a resolution.”
Delta Airlines
Delta Air Lines, Inc. is a major American airline, with its headquarters and largest hub at Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia. The airline along with its subsidiaries and regional affiliates operate over 5,400 flights daily and serve an extensive domestic and international network that includes 319 destinations in 54 countries on six continents, as of October 2016. The airline was founded on May 30, 1924.
