United Airlines Under Fire For Selling A Passenger’s $1,000 Seat To A Standby Passenger

United Airlines just can’t seem to catch a break.

If you travel frequently, you’re probably familiar with your preferred airline’s child policy. For instance, United Airlines requires children over the age of 2 to have their own tickets/seats. Well, Shirley Yamauchi knew that and abided by United’s policy. She bought two tickets (almost $1,000 each) to travel from Hawaii to Boston with her 2-year-old son, Taizo. But things got weird during their final stop in Houston.

She boarded the plane with her son and plopped him in his seat. All was fine until another passenger came up to them and claimed the boy was in his seat. Shirley told him she paid for two seats, so he must’ve been mistaken. But he wasn’t. As it turns out, he was a standby passenger. In other words, United resold Taizo’s seat.

“I told him that I bought both of these tickets and he tells me that he got the ticket on standby. Then he proceeds to sit in the center,” she said.

Shirley said she expressed her concern to the flight attendant, who completely dismissed her. The attendant told her the flight was full and walked away. So Shirley had to hold her son in her lap for the duration of the flight.

“I had to move my son onto my lap. He’s 25 pounds. He’s half my height. I was very uncomfortable. My hand, my left arm was smashed up against the wall. I lost feeling in my legs and left arm,” she said.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Why didn’t she say anything? Why didn’t she at least demand a refund or something? Because, she claims, she was scared.

“I started remembering all those incidents with United on the news. The violence. Teeth getting knocked out. I’m Asian. I’m scared and I felt uncomfortable. I didn’t want those things to happen to me,” she said.

I would’ve said something. I seriously doubt they would’ve bloodied a mom and dragged her off the plane. I think United learned its lesson the first time around.

Now that this story is getting national attention, United has issued an apology. Apparently, an employee didn’t scan Taizo’s ticket correctly, which made it look like Taizo wasn’t on the plane.

Seems like a logical explanation and a simple mistake. But I’m still not sure why they handled it so poorly from the beginning. They should’ve offered Shirley a refund on the spot or something.

But at least United is making up for it now.

“We deeply apologize to Ms. Yamauchi and her son for this experience. We are refunding her son’s ticket and providing a travel voucher. We are also working with our gate staff to prevent this from happening again,” United said in a statement.

In another statement to Fox News, United wrote:

“On a recent flight from Houston to Boston, we inaccurately scanned the boarding pass of Ms. Yamauchi’s son. As a result, her son’s seat appeared to be not checked in, and we released his seat to another customer and Ms. Yamauchi held her son for the flight.”

 

“We deeply apologize to Ms. Yamauchi and her son for this experience. We are refunding their tickets and providing compensation as a goodwill gesture. We are also working with our employees to prevent this from happening again.”

Hawaii News Now – KGMB and KHNL

At least United is trying to make things right. Better late than never, I suppose.