According to Delta, it's OK to seat a 2-year-old on his own for 15 hours.
 

Delta. What can we say. They blew it. Surprise, surprise. Rarely do I take a Delta flight when everything goes according to plan. This trip was no exception, but the offense is enough to write about.

Our party was two adults and a 2-year-old flying from Boston to Hong Kong with a layover in Detroit. A two-year-old on this 15+ hour flight was already stressful. We paid extra for premium economy on this trip. Our big mistake was trusting that Delta didn't screw up more than they already had. Randomly they changed our initial flight from 9 am to noon without notifying us. A three hour time difference seems like something we should have been notified about. We got that straightened out.

Our seats were all screwed up on the first flight from Boston to Detroit and we foolishly assumed the seats on the unaffected flight would be the same seats we paid for. They weren't. As we were boarding, we realized that our premium economy seats were no longer premium economy. Not only that, we were reassigned to all be in B seats. Yes, a 2-year-old was assigned to be away from his family, between strangers for a 15 hour flight. No problem, right? Ask the flight attendants to help us out and surely they will help with a ridiculous situation like this. Nope. They said we had to take care of it ourselves. Seriously? Your airline screws up and we have to go beg someone out of their seat?

Literally hours on the phone trying to figure out what happened and what could be done about it was worthless. Finally, Delta, making it seem like they were really helping us out, said we didn't have to pay for the premium economy seats from that flight. Thanks, Delta. You are refunding us for the seats we paid for and DIDN'T get. Classy.

There is a toxic and hostile attitude towards customers at Delta. It is so pervasive across the whole organisation that it can only be a cultural problem with the company.

This represented a child protection issue and I would write a letter to the DOT outlining your concerns about their handling of this case. The issue is not just the typical crap Delta service, in which the purchased service was not delivered and then you were made to feel they were doing you a favour by not charging for it.

In this situation Delta are guilty of child endangerment. This situation illustrates perfectly why airlines need re-regulating, they are incapable of acting in anything other than the best interests of the managment and shareholders, even if this puts customers in danger.

They did this in two ways. First, Delta had no way of knowing who the child would have been placed next to. A two year old child is hugely vulnerable and could have been sexually assaulted by the stranger they placed them next to. They also placed others in danger. If there had been, for example, a rapid decompression, the child would have been totally dependent on a stranger to take care of them. Furthermore, had there been an emergency evacuation, the likelihood is that the child's parents, instead of exiting the aircraft immediately would be trying to find their child to ensure they were safe, which would impede the egress of others and potentially endanger other lives.

The Delta staff acted utterly irresponsibly and whilst this is typical and common for Delta, it is unacceptable when the line is crossed and this becomes a safety issue. Delta has a legal responsibility for the safety of it's passengers and I think you should let the DOT know that they were prepared for the child to be placed at risk, unless you intervened yourself. Totally unacceptable.

There is a link to complain to the DOT in the Quick Links at the top of this page.

Perhaps this might jolt the Delta morons about the risks of sitting two year olds next to strangers....