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United Airlines Apologizes for Taking Seat From a Toddler

The airline offered a mea culpa after a mother was forced to hold her two-year-old for the entirety of a three-hour flight, because agents gave the child’s paid seat to another passenger.

United Airlines passenger Shirley Yamauchi says that the price of an airline ticket for her two-year child was nearly $1000, but because mother and child were traveling on an 18-hour journey all the way from Honolulu Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL) to Boston Logan International Airport (BOS), Yamauchi considered the pricey fare a necessary expense. According to the middle school teacher, however, airline employees considered the seat reserved for her toddler to be an unnecessary extravagance and instead offered the seat to a standby passenger, forcing her to hold her 27-month-old son in her arms for the final three-and-a-half-hour leg of the journey.

“He and I, we had both our tickets scanned, we both went on board no problem,” Yamauchi told Honolulu ABC affiliate KITV. Yamauchi soon found out that there was indeed a problem just before takeoff on the final leg of their trip from Houston George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH), when another flyer arrived carrying a boarding pass bearing the same seat assignment as her son. “It was very shocking,” she recounted to ABC News. “I was confused. I told him, I bought both of these seats. The flight attendant came by, shrugs and says ‘flight’s full.’”

Yamauchi says that recent publicity surrounding what happened to other passengers who stood up for their rights led her to acquiesce to the unfair demand. “I’m scared,” she later explained to reporters. “I’m worried. I’m traveling with an infant. I didn’t want to get hurt. I didn’t want either of us to get hurt.”

United Airlines officials have since apologized for the incident and refunded the cost of the ticket along with a voucher for future travel. The carrier attributed the confusion to an error at the gate. “We inaccurately scanned the boarding pass of Ms. Yamauchi’s son,” the company said in a statement to USA Today. “As a result, her son’s seat appeared not to be checked in and staff released his seat to another customer.”

Yamauchi, who says she at one point during the flight had to place her child between her knees, isn’t buying United Airlines’ explanation. “It’s worrisome. Everyone who has helped me so far has contradicted each other. With their suggestions, this needs to stop. United has made errors that make national headlines. yet, it continues,” she said. “What happened to my son was unsafe, uncomfortable and unfair.”

Although the FAA specifically recommends that children not be carried by parents but instead be securely placed in their own approved child seat, North American airlines have a long history of improperly dismissing and misunderstanding these safety guidelines.

This April, a father on a Delta Airlines flight was threatened with arrest for insisting that his small child be allowed to sit in the seat that he had booked for his son. A family was kicked off of a JetBlue flight in August of 2015 for refusing to hold their child rather than placing the two-year-old securely in a child safety seat as recommended by the FAA and federal regulators found that American Airlines crews improperly required a passenger to hold their child on their lap in at least one confirmed case.

[Photo: Shutterstock]

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6 Comments
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AsiaTraveler July 16, 2017

Flyertalk, thank you for changing the headline to more accurately describe the situation.

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AsiaTraveler July 9, 2017

Flyertalk, please change this headline. This was *not* a "baby". This was a 2 year old! While it's extra frustrating for parents who pay for a seat to be forced into a lap child situation, this was not even a legal lap child! I hope the FAA is getting involved too for this egregious violation of law.

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ZCY July 8, 2017

I try not to fly UA again.

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ppepe99 July 7, 2017

The same thing almost happen to me. I have back issues, so if I'm flying a small plane and I usually by 2 seats so I can move some and avoid pain. When I came to the airport on the return they had taken my extra seat because they claimed 2 things, that I did not pay for the ticket and that the plane was full. I showed the lady my boarding passes of the first flight and that did not matter, she claimed that that 2nd seat was comped. I was very upset, Called AMEX where I had bought the tickets to confirm that had bought them. Of course I had, they called United and the airline blamed the airport. I asked them not to refund the seat and keep a record of all because I was planning to sue. This seems to be a normal practice of this airline. Before boarding the lady at the counter came and gave me the extra seat, avoiding further problems for the airline. This employee saved them of a lawsuit and embarrassment. It is very frustrating to be treated like this. The laws have to change. The airlines since 9/11 have been given a free pass to act any way they want to when this laws were really meant to keep us safe from terrorism. The airlines lobby very hard for this laws not to change. SAD.

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Sabai July 7, 2017

United: We never miss a chance to screw over our hapless passengers.