Imagine you booked a first-class flight, only to learn that you had to give up your seat to a dog. That's exactly what allegedly happened to one fed up Delta passenger.
He took to Reddit to complain that he was forced to give up his seat for a service animal. "I got upgraded to first this morning, only to 15 mins later get downgraded (to a worse seat than I previously had). I asked the desk agent what was going on and she said "something changed," he complained.
"Okay, fine, I am disgruntled but whatever, I then board only to see this dog in my first class seat ... And now I'm livid," Redditor @ben_bob explained in a post.
After feeling frustrated, he contacted Delta Support. However, he learned that the airline said that there was nothing they could do. Delta said it could move a human passenger to accommodate a service animal.
"There is no way that dog has spent as much with this airline as I have," he said. "What's the point of being loyal to this airline anymore, truly. I've sat back when others complained about this airline mistreating customers lately and slipping in service levels, but I'm starting to question my allegiance as well."
Delta Passengers Complain
Fortunately, he found sympathetic listeners from his fellow Delta travelers onr eddit.
"Notice how nowhere else in life do you see this quantity of service animals? Go to the airport and all the sudden they appear," one said.
"Exclusively in the US. It doesn't happen anywhere else. It's American main-character syndrome," another said.
"The dog is probably a Diamond Medallion 2 million miler," someone else joked.
"When I was in reservations, anytime people wanted the blocked seats I had to advise them that Delta has the legal obligation to move them if a passenger with disabilities requires it," another said.
Travel expert Gary Leff also jumped in on the issue and ultimately sided with the passenger over Delta.
"I genuinely don't see Delta's logic in bumping a passenger from first class to accommodate a dog in the bulkhead," Leff wrote at View From The Wing. "To be sure, airlines are generally required to provide reasonable accommodations under the Air Carrier Access Act, and one way they do that can be with bulkhead seats. However, a last minute seat switch certainly wouldn't be required."
