Stories about nightmare flights don’t seem to shock us anymore. Those who travel frequently know that flying is no longer the glamorous and exciting experience it once was.
Flying with children makes the whole experience even tougher as toddlers and babies can’t be expected to keep still at all times. As parents we know what an anxious time it is.
What is increasingly worrying is the bad treatment more and more airline customers are experiencing, and all while the cost of flying goes up and up.
Shirley Yamauchi is no exception. She paid almost $1,000 for a United Airlines plane ticket for her 2-year-old son, only to be told that he had to give up his seat so a standby passenger who paid $75 for his ticket could sit there.
Now the middle school teacher has taken action in the hope that this will never happen again.
The 47-year-old mother, who teaches at Kapolei Middle School in Hawaii, was forced to hold her son on her lap during the United Airlines flight from Houston to Boston.
Shirley’s journey started in Hawaii where she flew to Houston for her layover and waited 5 hours for her next flight to Boston.
The exhausted mom sat her son next to her only to be told by a man that he was sitting in his seat.
Shirley had to hold her son during an over 3-hour flight even though she paid nearly $1,000 for the United Airlines ticket. The airline forced her to give up the seat to a standby passenger who shared the same seat number and purchased his seat for $75, according to HuffPost.
She said complained to flight attendants, but Shirley said United did not apologize until five days later, claiming agents inaccurately scanned her toddler Taizo’s boarding pass.
As well as United giving away her son’s seat to a standby passenger for a fraction of the price, it’s against airline policy. Once infants turn two years old they are required to buy a ticket and occupy a seat.
Shirley is 5 ft 2 in tall and struggled to keep her 25-pound son on her lap, at one point he had to crouch on the floor.
The mom is suing the airline, which she says gave her good treatment and perks on the way back but she felt the offers weren’t real.
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