A whole lot of speculation in this thread. If any of those posting the "facts" above saw what happened or spoke with someone reliable about it, great. Otherwise, it's just more fake news here on FT.

1. As a general matter, if there is space available, lap kids are fine in a spare seat so long as properly secured. Even more the case on domestic flights where there is no charge for the lap kid. This likely only came to anyone's attention because someone showed up with a BP for the lap kid's seat and that only occurs when the older kit has been offloaded because he no showed.

2. If the family did use the older son's BP for the lap kid, the GA has no real way of verifying because there is no ID check on infants (or anyone <16). Perhaps the GA should have double-checked that the BP was for an infant, but that holds up the boarding process. This of course ultimately throws of weight & balance calculations and that gets the Captain and dispatcher involved as the entire process gets reset. I have no idea what else was assigned in that TPAC region at the time, but if the aircraft misses its slot (it's all by radio and assigned time slot because there's no radar over the Pacific), it holds until the next slot opens.

3. As to whether DL ought to simply reassign tickets on the fly, that's not something GA's can do. There's a ton of sad stories out there. Where would you draw the line?

- Bought your girlfriend a ticket and she died, so now you want to transfer the cheap ticket to someone else rather than buy a new expensive one?
- Friend got sick at the last minute and can't travel?


So, really need lots and lots of facts here.

People still talk about Stella Liebeck and the $3 Million she collected off a well-known fast food chain for the disintegrating cup of coffee.