Family Threatened, Kicked Off Delta Flight for Refusing to Give Up Their Infant-Son’s Seat for Overbooking [Video]

Delta Air Lines is again in hot water for booting a family off of a Los Angeles-bound flight after they refused to give up a seat that they paid for. The seat was occupied by their 2-year-old son.

via NBC:

A confrontation caught on camera shows a Southern California family being booted off a Los Angeles-bound Delta Air Lines flight after they refused to give up a seat that was occupied by their infant son.

Brian Schear of Huntington Beach was headed home with his wife and two infants from Maui to Los Angeles International Airport on April 23 when they were kicked off the plane. 

In a video posted online, Schear tells airline employees he purchased a ticket for his older son 18-year-old son Mason. Mason ended up taking an earlier flight, so the family decided the younger son would instead occupy his place in a car seat instead of having the child sit on the wife’s lap.

“He won’t sleep unless he’s in his car seat,” the father explains to the employees.

The staff tells Schear his younger son can’t sit on the seat because Mason’s name is on it, not the infant’s.

Although the ticket was initially bought for his teenage son, Schear says he was led to believe the switch was not a big deal. He told NBC4 his family told airline staff about the situation from the beginning, and that Delta suggested using the seat for the infant son. 

At the airport, Schear claims they spoke with a ticketing agent downstairs who said they technically needed to cancel and buy a new ticket, before saying it was fine. The family obtained the boarding pass.

When the airline asked the family to give up the seat, at first, Schear refused to abide. He claimed the airline ordered his family to do this because Delta overbooked the flight.

In the video, an employee tells him refusing to get off the plane was a federal offense and he could be jailed.

“What blew me away was when they said, if you don’t give the seat up, you’re going to jail, your wife is going to jail, and they’re gonna take your kids away,” he told NBC4 Wednesday.

The eight-minute-long confrontation video was filmed by his wife and shared via social media.

Take a look below.