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I sat near two passengers yesterday, a mother and her son, on a flight from Buffalo to Dallas and their story has really stuck with me a day later. I rarely believe somebody "deserves" to sit in first class, but this is one of those times when somebody should have been up front. These two passengers had paid for first class but were downgraded to coach, despite the fact that two people on the upgrade list were cleared. The mother was going through quite the ordeal, and I am very upset at American Airlines on her behalf.

The first signs of problems was that there was about a 5-minute delay in boarding during group 1. I was boarding in an early group and overheard comments from gateworkers about somebody in a wheelchair causing trouble. However, when seated near them, the more I heard from her side of the story, the more sympathy I had.

She publicly shared a lot of her story to her fellow passengers, but for their privacy, I will keep a lot of that to myself. But for the sake of empathy, you should know she was caring for her child who was just discharged from the hospital, and she was transporting him home. That was the reason she paid extra for first class: to make it easy on him.

She showed nearby passengers with her emailed receipt that she had indeed paid in full for the seats. She had her hands full with two little dogs sitting with them. She knew that getting her kid and dogs home was going to make for a tough trip and had spent hours on the phone getting these tickets and special arrangements for the wheelchair and dogs.

However, when boarding Friday morning, they were assigned separate seats in economy, and had to ask to at least be seated next to each other. While waiting to board, I do recall a few announcements on requests to change seats.

It was clear that they hadn't eaten, and there was no food on board other than cookies. Their ticket said they would have a continental breakfast on board, after all. Apparently the son required food with his medicine. They were instead reliant on only having those Biscoff cookies to eat the whole flight. There were not even pretzels. This flight didn't even have snacks for purchase. The mother asked if she could have any leftovers from first class as she had paid for those seats, but the flight attendant immediately said no, there is only enough food for those seated in first class. I did think that was a little callous. He didn't even attempt to check.

An airline employee did come by to tell them the reason for the downgrade was that the flight was originally a 737 but was downgraded to an A320 with fewer first class seats and the system chose them to be downgraded. This struck me as a little odd since I always watch for plane type, and when I booked this last week it was indeed an A320 at the time of my booking. I do not know when she booked, but I am not completely sold on that explanation myself. They told her she can call to request a refund.

The really odd thing about it was, that I had noticed on the board walking in that two people were upgraded to first class, Seats 1D and 1C. How can that happen when at the same time two other Paid First passengers were booted out of first class? As a semi-frequent flyer, I do not know how that could happen. Even if those two who were upgraded were AAdvantage whales, how can you not give those seats back to this mother and her son?