Gay couple "humiliated", told to go to coach or leave plane after double booking
26 replies, posted
https://www.indy100.com/article/gay-couple-alaska-airlines-anti-gay-virgin-discrimination-lgbt-8474701
A gay man has claimed that him and his partner were left 'humiliated' after Alaska Airlines were discriminatory towards them.
The situation arose when David Cooley and his partner had taken their premium seats on flight 1407 from John J Kennedy Airport to LAX on Sunday 29 July, and, according to Alaska
Airlines, one of the seats had been double booked.
A member of the flight crew allegedly then asked Cooley's partner whether he could move to make way for a straight couple so that they could sit together. When he refused, the
attendant insisted that they either give up the premium seat and move to coach, or they leave the plane. The couple decided to leave the plane.
After the ordeal, Cooley took to Facebook to express his frustration and humiliation at facing such 'discrimination'
I have never been so discriminated against while traveling before. I was removed from an Alaska Airlines flight #1407 from John F. Kennedy International Airport to LAX to give
preferential treatment to a straight couple.
After my traveling companion and I had been seated in our assigned seats for a while, we were approached by the flight attendant and my companion was asked to move from his
premium seat to coach, so a couple could sit together.
I explained that we were a couple and wanted to sit together. He was given a choice to either give up the premium seat and move to coach or get off the plane.
Alaska Airlines has since apologised for the incident, and has issued an official statement, reports VT:
This unfortunate incident was caused by a seating error, compounded by a full flight and a crew seeking an on-time departure, and nothing more than that. It's our policy to keep all
families seated together whenever possible; that didn't happen here and we are deeply sorry for the situation.
We've reached out to Mr Cooley to offer our sincere apologies for what happened and we are seeking to make it right.
Since the apology, Cooley has also posted on his Facebook account that he 'accepts' the airline's apology
The real crime here is that airlines are allowed to overbook flights in the first place...
because people want lower prices for flights, and generally barring shitty situations, no one's too upset if they volunteer for $200 travel/cash to fly a few hours later
if planes weren't overbooked, then the percentage of people who were noshows would stay the same, and now you've got seats that people could have flown in that are empty
There's honesty nothing wrong with that. In most cases, the outcome is amicable and allows for ticket prices to be lower since more planes are more full. A surprisingly high amount of people end up no-showing or last minute rescheduling their tickets.
I presume you'd get the difference refunded, and then some. Still kinda sucks though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqWksuyry5w
Probably the best explanation of the situation in a condensed form for those interested.
We could legislate certain practices however. The way delta does it is optimal imo, where when boarding a flight people are asked what the minimum they would need to be paid to give up their seat would be. Despite bumping the most passengers out of every airline, delta has the fewest involuntarily bumped passengers IIRC.
If the seat was "double booked," then it means that specific seat had two different people book it. Being "double booked" isn't the same as the flight being overbooked.
And since more than the available number of premium seats were booked(since they didn't just move someone else around), it is overbooked.
i'm not sure if this is really a case of discrimination
What makes the straight couples case more real than the gay couples then?
She didn't say anything about that, though, did she? I didn't see anything in the article mentioning their sexual orientation beyond the gay couple, themselves.
Honestly, I would like to hear from the airline before making those kinds of assumptions. If they apologize without giving an alternative legitimate reason, then yeah, it's probably just because the person didn't like gay people, but if they say, for example, that the other couple paid more for the seats, or they had checked in earlier, or any other number of reasons, then not so much.
But neither of these things happened. Alaska Airlines already spoke out.
This unfortunate incident was caused by a seating error, compounded by a
full flight and a crew seeking an on-time departure, and nothing more
than that.
They overbooked, the people onboard decided to give preferential treatment to the straight couple even though the gay couple had already taken their seats.
Looks like you're right. My bad for not scrolling down to the bottom of the article.
This part
my companion was asked to move from his
premium seat to coach, so a couple could sit together.
I explained that we were a couple and wanted to sit together. He was given a choice to either give up the premium seat and move to coach or get off the plane.
i've known straight couples who have had the same thing happen to them
eh I feel like first-come-first-served should apply here, they were kicking him out because another person had yet to board.
The issue here is that they already took their seat, and they were asked to move "for a couple to sit together" while they were a couple and were already seated together for plane tickets they purchased. Discrimination in my book. Not necessarily by the airlines, but whomever told them they needed to comply or leave.
I don't really feel like it mattered if they were gay or not because airlines do this shit multiple times a day anyways.
Ok, so, "Excuse me Straight Couple A, could you separate from your current seats so that Straight Couple B can be together instead?"
How does that justify this?
I never said it did?
I said it's not proof of discrimination
They were asked to move seats or leave the plane so another straight couple could sit together?
This unfortunate incident was caused by a seating error, compounded by a full flight and a crew seeking an on-time departure, and nothing more than that.
Fuck these non-apologies from corporations. Take some responsibility, admit your employee was a bigot, and take disciplinary action.
tbh these companies wouldn't be so roundabout if the average person actually considered a real apology worth half a damn.
I've seen this happen a lot. People are cheap. I've seen my dad call someone a cheap fuck on a flight before because they tried to take his extra leg room seat (he's 2m long).
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