Originally Posted by
norf9
It's cheaping out because anyone who has flown before knows that if you don't have a seat, you are the first one to be booted if there's an issue. This is compounded by the fact that he had no contingency plan if the flight was cancelled. There is no chance what so ever that you will be able to get 27 standby passengers on the same flight. When traveling with 27 underage students it is the height of irresponsibility to not have a backup plan if the flight was cancelled, or something else went wrong.
What is unfair is booting other people off the flight because the principle was irresponsible.
Absurd. The rules vary from airline to airline, and not all airlines use seat assignments to determine who gets IDB'd. In fact, United's rules specifically allow a gate agent to put groups ahead of others when not doing so would cause a hardship.
AA almost certainly could have gotten six other pax to their destinations via different flights that landed fairly close to the original arrival time. That is not true for a group of 27 children. This is a case where an AAgent just screwed up by not using a little common sense (unless there is more to this story, which is possible).