Family kicked off Delta flight for refusing to give up toddler’s seat

LOS ANGELES (KABC) — A Southern California family says they were kicked off an overbooked Delta airplane because they refused to yield a seat held by their young son.

The Schear family of Huntington Beach says they were flying from Hawaii to Los Angeles last week when airline staff asked them to give up a seat occupied by their 2-year-old son and carry him on their laps for the duration of the flight.  They tried to refuse and argued with airline staff, but say they were threatened with being sent to jail.

“You have to give up the seat or you’re going to jail, your wife is going to jail and they’ll take your kids from you,” Brian Schear recalled the airline staff telling him.

Despite feeling they were in the right, that threat was terrifying, said Brian’s wife, Brittany Schear.  “As a mother, you have a 1-year-old and a 2-year-old – it doesn’t matter whether that’s true or false. It put fear in me,” she said.

“You’re saying you’re gonna give that away to someone else when I paid for that seat?” Brian Schear says to an airline employee. “That’s not right.”