Originally Posted by omaralt

these are the facts:

ticket was for older son.
older son took an earlier flight
they had a lap child with them
they tried to use the older sons seat for their lap child
they were taken off the plane

those are the facts. now we can speculate about the circumstances and what not. this is a forum after all for flying matters

now to answer your question about where to draw the line. i think the airlines need to give the GA some discretion to use common sense. No, you cannot bring a random person instead of the person who was going to use the seat. but they should be able to replace the older childs name with the lap child. both have been cleared for the flight. if somebody's wife/gf died, thats a different story. the airlines should ask for a death certificate and simply refund the fare.