Originally Posted by
chococat
This is awful and your parents are probably due some sort of compensation, but not under the Involuntary Denied Boarding policy which only applies to specific overbooking situations. Definitely try to get some miles or something out of this, but don't cite IDB compensation or you give the airline an easy way to deny you. I guess the lesson here is to always check your booking proactively and not depend on the airline to notify you.
One question though- did your parents book directly from Delta or from a travel agent (online or otherwise)? If the latter, it's technically the responsibility of the travel agent to inform the passengers of any changes.
No travel agent. We booked the flights. We control the email that got the reciept and verified there was notification of the rebooking to it. We logged into Delta website and see both a phone number and this same email filled in for passenger contact information. No contract to either.
I see 14 CFR Chapter II 250 speaks to oversales. It looks like this wasn't an oversale. I don't see any provision for "what if airline just doesn't have a flight when you show up as scheduled" and creates a large delay before you can arrive - you would think this is just as bad if not worse... too absurd to contemplate in a reg though!