Not The Friendly Skies

Airlines fly a lot of passengers, millions of them and in the U S they do it safely to a level that exceeds expectations. But on the subject of passenger treatment they often fall short. It seems theyve done it again. A lady with a child was flying a very long 18 hour flight from Hawaii to Boston, with of course stop along the way. On the last leg, a 3 hour flight, United double sold the same seat and forced the lady to give up the seat that she had paid for for her son and which she had a valid boarding pass scanned when she boarded the plane. The flight attendant told her she had to hold her son in her lap for the entire 3 hour leg. You can imagine how tired youd be after 15 to 18 hours, and even more than that it is not safe to have a child who is not in a seat belt. The lady is small, no way could she safely hold a child who she said is half her height. I am not sure but think FAA regs might require a child over 2 years old like this to be in a seat belt.
The lady said she was actually afraid that they might be pulled off the plane or injured so she had to accept it. She is Asian and not prone to a dispute like this. The childs seat, bought, paid for, and with a boarding pass, was given to a man standby passenger. A week later the airline refunded the childs fare.
It would not seem that hard, to me, that when a question arises like this, that giving the first consideration should go to a Mom and a child, certainly with a valid pass over a standby passenger.

OH yeah, I would have made the evening news !!!
Bob

United employees and it's CEO have a very serious learning disability. It does not seem to learn from or care about past bad behaviour. That makes them a corporate sociopath. What happened to the new customer treatment guidelines that were instituted after the passenger dragging fiasco. Continuous bad practices are the norm. Federal legislation with tough sanctions and fines are required to send the message that your sh** customer service and bad behaviour will not be tolerated in any manner under any circumstances.

In the meantime, the enforcement branch of ICAO must step up in the interim and do something to support and protect passengers.

What is really sad is that all that should have been learned in kindergarten or even earlier in Sunday school: treat others like you'd like to be treated. That's really all it takes. It doesn't take some 300 page policy manual.

Cary

It goes both ways, there are passengers who are way over any decent behavior also. The latest one in the news is on Delta where a passenger tries to open the forward cabin door in flight, and pulled the handle half way. He was a strong young man, and had a struggle with the flight attendant and even some passengers also. Finally a flight attendant hit this guy over the head with two full bottles of wine,and he was arrested after landing.
Crazy thing is this was a family member of Delta employee, flying on that perk and in first class, not the kind of person youd expect to be doing this.
As for United having a problem more than other airlines, who knows, after all they are large and carry a lot of people without problems. Many of us have friends that work for United, but their CEO certainly didnt show much empathy initally when they had attacked the doctor on board.