United Airlines is in the hot seat again after receiving a complaint from a Hawaii teacher who was forced to hold her toddler for a three-and-a-half hour flight due to a mix-up on the part of the airline.
The airline had given the child's seat to a standby passenger, according to Hawaii News Now.
Shirley Yamauchi, 42, and her 2-year-old son, Taizo, were traveling from Hawaii to Boston – a trip that was far from cheap, as she claims she paid nearly $1,000 for each plane ticket, NBC News reported.
The flight had a layover in Houston that lasted for more than five hours. By the time Yamauchi and her son got settled in their seats on the plane, a standby passenger approached them and told the teacher that her son was in his seat.
Yamauchi alerted one of the flight attendants of the problem, but "she shrugged and said the flight is full," Yamauchi told NBC News.
The airline has faced a series of public relations struggles that have received widespread attention recently, including the forcible removal of a passenger from an overbooked flight in April.
Yamauchi said she had to sit her 25-pound son on her lap for the duration of the flight. The two shared a seatbelt, but at some points during the flight Yamauchi said Taizo had to either stand or crouch on the floor because he was just too heavy to keep on her lap for that long.
"It was unsafe, uncomfortable and unfair," Yamauchi told NBC News. "I couldn't believe it was happening to me."
The airline took five days to issue an apology to Yamauchi, according to Hawaii News Now.
United Airlines spokesman Jonathan Guerin issued an apology to the teacher.
"On a recent flight from Houston to Boston, we inaccurately scanned the boarding pass of Ms. Yamauchi's son," Guerin said in a statement. "As a result, her son's seat appeared to be not checked in, and staff released his seat to another customer and Ms. Yamauchi held her son for the flight. We deeply apologize to Ms. Yamauchi and her son for his experience."
The airline has refunded Yamauchi for her sons' ticket and has given her a traveling voucher, but she argues that the compensation isn't enough considering the "pain and discomfort" she and her son had to endure, according to NBC News.
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