Delta forces Ann Coulter to change her seat -- she's peeved

In My Humble Opinion
61

I don’t have an idea that complaining would automatically result in being removed. That was an abbreviated version of this:

And again, we have no way of knowing if she did say something at the time. I suspect she may have, and was met with a faux polite refusal. It’s not the initial request that could get her thrown off, it’s if she pressed the matter after the refusal, which would have been painted as belligerent or disruptive - especially coming from her. I know Delta claims she didn’t say anything at the time, but the spokesperson was not there and has no way of knowing what conversation took place.

62

Even based on what you wrote before, your scenario is unrealistic. People simply don’t get thrown off flights very often. If she had escalated to highly disruptive behavior, she might have been removed, but that’s true in a restaurant or movie theater or any other business.

I’m much more inclined to believe Delta than her. She’s a pathological liar and troll. Her only account of the interaction claims the exchange was "Why are you taking me out of the extra room seat I specifically booked, @Delta?’ Flight attendant: "I don’t know” which certainly wasn’t the entire conversation.

And even if she did receive a “faux polite refusal,” it was a pretty minor annoyance. Even if she was completely in the right, escalating to the point being disruptive wouldn’t have been appropriate.

I have to ask, how often do you fly? Your posts seem to indicate that your view of how airlines treat complaints is based more on bad publicity over a small number of incidents rather than actual experience.

63

It happened to me. About 15 years ago, I had booked an aisle seat for a long transatlantic flight. A few minutes before takeoff, a flight attendant brusquely told me to “move over” and gave my aisle seat to a late-boarding passenger.

I was a little peeved, but I got over it. I had forgotten about it until I saw this thread.

64

My real dilemma by comparison for my real upcoming flight next month occurred to me as I was choosing seats last night. I noticed that I can buy an extra legroom seat for $X more.

One of the seats showing available for that is a window seat in the row just behind the over wing exit row. On this particular plane the exit row does not have a window seat so the window seat in the row behind the exit row would really have a lot of extra legroom but apparently no place to stow a small carryon under the seat in front of me.

To me this would be worth the extra cost and I would be willing to pay extra under the presumption I can actually get that particular window seat in the row behind the exit row. This is largely because I have been having a lot of back and leg pain and having that much extra space might make a substantial difference in my level of comfort.

Other seats that the airline lumps together under the same extra legroom class for the same additional cost do not feature the same amount of leg room. Paying extra for those seats does not interest me as I do not think the lesser amount of additional space is sufficient.

So, if I pay extra for the seat I want and don’t get it but am put in one of the other extra legroom seats do I have a legitimate complaint? Keep in mind I am not a well known person with thousands of twitter followers.

IMHO I would have a legit complaint. Now I don’t have a legion of followers to tweet to, and don’t even have a Twitter or Facebook account. And my 13 year old Nokia brick cell phone doesn’t even have a camera to be able to take a photo of a passenger who was given “my” seat by the airline. So I couldn’t take my griping as far as Ann Coulter did. I wouldn’t even if I could.

So by analogy, yes I think Coulter has a legitimate complaint. And it was reasonable for her to express her displeasure at the airline. But she took it way too far by dragging the other passenger into this and posting her photo.

65

Wake up, sheeple! There was no plane!

66

Apparently she tried to complain online at the time. She made the point of noting the Wi-Fi wasn’t working on the plane.

67

Sure. Delta made an error and Coulter was allocated a seat different from the one she reserved and desired. Coulter instead sat in her desired seat, was asked to move to her ticketed seat (which is HER seat at that point, per the ticket agreement) and made a big fuss.

Like I said, she’s the same as someone screaming in a McDonalds because her childlike ego thinks “I’ll throw a temper tantrum and make a public scene until I get my way” is the proper response to a minor inconvenience. Trying to press “Delta made an error” is pretty meaningless. Lots of people make errors. Companies make errors because they’re filled with people. Shit happens. This was a very tiny error. That doesn’t mean that you have to act like a raving three year old because Mommy said you can’t have the doll you saw on the shelf.

Sure. Probably her $30 back and maybe a couple drink coupons. Which is perfectly adequate compensation for the “loss” she was taking.

68

So she didn’t say anything at the time, but there was certainly more to the non-existent conversation than she claimed?

Delta accepted extra money from her in return for allowing her choose her seat. She was not allowed to use that seat. She was completely in the right, she was not disruptive. And yet Delta didn’t offer to refund her for the service she paid for but did not receive until after she complained publicly.

No you don’t, and no they don’t, because it’s irrelevant. We’re only talking about this one incident. I have said nothing about how rare or common similar incident are.

69

Well. It’s certainly going to be difficult to get this horse back in the barn.

70

I only fly a few times per year, usually to a fabulous vacation destination, as I don’t travel for work. But I will say that flying is a major PITA these days, in large part because the airlines are simply not customer friendly. They routinely cancel flights, change flight times, change seat assignments, add layovers, you name it. It’s like a crap shoot. You give them your money and hope that when the departure day arrives, you’ll be on a flight that somewhat resembles what you originally booked. (And you can’t wait to book til the last minute, because airfares can change on a whim, too.)

Case in Point: Just this week, Frontier notified me that they were changing my flight to SFO from a direct 5 hour travel time flight, arriving at 6pm, to a non-direct 10 hour travel time, ultimately arriving at midnight. So my choice was to drive 2.5 hours to my friend’s house at midnight (which, incidentally, is 3am my time) OR I could book a hotel room in SFO that night, adding several hundred bucks to my cost. Oh, and I had to change my rental car reservation, too. (I ended up cancelling and booking on Delta.)

Last year, Delta changed my flight home from Maui to add in another layover in ATL, which added another 6 hours to my travel time. Another memorable time, even though I’d booked the flight and selected seats 10 months in advance, by the time we departed, NONE Of us were seated together, including my 2 kids. Thank goodness they were old enough to behave themselves for 11 hours.

So, yes, I completely understand the frustration of flying. It’s gone from bad to really, really bad, as airlines do whatever they want to eke out more pesos.

That being said, Ann Coulter is a ridiculous, hypocritical, overly-dramatic pimple on the face of America. And I just wish someone would pop her already.

71

She was disruptive when she made the decision to sit in her preferred seat rather than the one shown on her ticket, thus forcing the flight attendant to ask her to move, Coulter demanding to know WHY she had to move, etc.

72

You say you fly often yet you don’t seem to realize how lame and uninformed your argument is, and you conveniently ignored my earlier post pointing out that it doesn’t appear the Coulter bothered to use Delta’s proper complaint channel. Most civilized people, when dealt an unsatisfactory experience, will give the company a chance to make it right before spewing their bile on social media.

And how is “Delta” supposed to know that she’s unhappy enough about a trivial mistake that she even wants some sort of compensation? She was given an equivalent seat, one that she’d selected in the first place. She may have complained to the flight attendant but is he/she supposed to pull $30 out of his/her pocket and give it to her on the spot? Reshuffle everyone around because of her demands while they’re trying to board and take off on time? Did Coulter even bother trying to see if the other people in her row would mind switching before taking their picture to post on Twitter?

I’m curious, Doug K. and doorhinge, what you would have done in her situation?

73

She bitched about the flight attendant asking her to move and how, when she demanded to know why, was told “I don’t know” (complete with photo of said attendant because we all needed to know who this person was who dared cross Coulter). Bitch, the reason why is simple: Because your ass isn’t in the seat designated on your ticket. No, she doesn’t know WHY your ticket isn’t the seat you wanted but that’s not really her job. What she does know is that your ass is in a seat that someone else has a ticket for so instead of throwing a tantrum on the internet, go move it to where it belongs.

74

I probably would’ve found a flight attendant and said “I reserved an aisle seat because I tend to get up frequently and I don’t like to disrupt the other people in the row”.
If that didn’t work I’d be fine with it because then I wouldnt feel at all bad about climbing over the other people in the aisle every twenty minutes. But I’d almost feel obligated to mention it if they moved me to a window.

75

The question isn’t what one of us would have done. It’s what Delta should have done. What the flight attendant should have done instead of just saying “I don’t know” would have been to call someone who could check it out and ask Ann to be patient while someone sorted it out. If her reservation was put in the system correctly (and it apparently was, because the airline was able to verify that she did in fact pay extra for a specific seat) it shouldn’t have taken more than a few minutes for someone else to verify it while the plane was still being boarded. At that point, her complaint would be in the system, which is how Delta could know a passenger was unhappy. And where do you get “reshuffle everyone around”? All they would have had to do to correct the mistake was switch her with the person they’d put in the seat she reserved. And if that turned out to not be possible for some reason she should have been offered the refund by the time they got to the destination.

For what it’s worth, before taking it to social media I would have written a letter to Delta expressing my dissatisfaction not just for the incident, but also for the fact that I had to write that letter, pointing out that the flight attendant should have sent my initial complaint up the chain.

76

I disagree. The FA’s have no time to check on a random passenger’s complaint about their seating assignment. They are too busy trying to get people’s 75 pound “carry on” bags into the upper bins, telling people to clear the aisles for boarding, and demanding people turn off their laptops.

Any complaints should have been handled at the gate. And that goes for me, when my family of 4 ended up being scattered randomly on the plane even though I’d reserved our seats 10 months in advance.

Her boarding pass said something different than what she reserved. Her complaint should have been lodged with corporate, at the boarding gate, or after the fact via email. The FA was not at fault here.

That person was under the impression that it was the seat SHE reserved, because it was printed on her boarding pass. So now what do you do?

Technically, she was still in a seat that costs another $30 to reserve. That’s how the system works now. Each seat is assigned a value from $0 on up.

77

Sure.

Of course, the right time to complain was when she got her boarding pass, and it had the wrong seat on it. She could probably have gotten out all sorted out. Instead, she ignored the seat assignment, and sat in a seat assigned to somebody else.

Of course the flight attendant will ask her to move to her assigned seat. The flight attendant is tasked with getting everyone seated so the flight can take off safely and on time.

Even then, if she’d complained politely, the attendant might have been able to get her a window seat. But then there’s no good way to do so.

Fyi, last time delta asked me to move, I objected to the first seat they offered, then they offered me a better one (for me) and they ALSO refunded my “more space” fee, despite my getting the more space. They didn’t tell me they would refund it. I just got a credit on my credit card from them.

78

Ah, but Coulter is a Republican, and our President is…?

Personally, I think Ann Coulter is hot in a “Skeletor wears a blonde woman’s skin” kinda way.

:wink:

79

Why quote my post if you aren’t going to read it? I specifically explained how they did not acknowledge it was “her seat.” She doesn’t own the seat. She just got a seat assignment.

And her assignment was to a different seat than the one she sat in. The lady who had an assignment to that seat has JUST AS MUCH A CLAIM to call it her seat as Coulter does.

Delta has not made themselves look bad at all. They dealt with it perfectly. They hear about the complaint, so they give her exactly what every other person would have gotten if they’d complained, and nothing more. Ann Coulter looks bad, because she decided to whine on Twitter rather than actually act like an adult and fix her ticket before she got on the plane, and then continue to pretend to be persecuted after restitution was made.

I would be much more likely to fly Delta after this incident. They didn’t knuckle under for an entitled asshole who decided to whine on Twitter and publicly shame the person who sat in the seat WHO DID NOTHING WRONG. She was too much of a child to deal with the problem like an adult, and so they didn’t give the asshole what they want.

Coulter made herself look like a horrible person, and yet people still want to twist to make her out to be some innocent victim.

80

I read your “explanation’”. The problem is, Delta said otherwise. Or do you think they were lying when they said this?

And saying it was her seat doesn’t mean she owns it. It means she paid extra for the use of that specific seat on that specific flight.