United Airlines 'deeply sorry' after forcing toddler from yet another double-sold seat

United Airlines hit the headlines earlier this year after a video of passenger David Dao being dragged down an aisle and off the plane went viral around the world.

This week, United’s customer service is in the news again again – after a mother claimed she was forced to give up her toddler’s seat after the airline sold it on.

Shirley Yamauchi, from Hawaii, says she ended up holding the boy for the duration of the flight.

The teacher was flying from Boston, and was changing plane when a man walked up with the same seat number as her son Taizo.

She told local TV station KITV: "I told him, I bought both of these seats. The flight attendant came by, shrugs and says, ‘flight’s full.’”

United said in a statement that Taizo’s pass had been scanned improperly – meaning that his seat was registered as empty, and the airline sold it on.

Adding insult to injury, the man who took her son's seat, paid just $75 while she paid $969. "What happened to my son was unsafe, uncomfortable and unfair," Shirley Yamauchi, mother said.

Yamauchi was told that she could not apply for a refund immediately.

She said: "I was told if we refund you anything right now, we’re going to have to cancel the rest of your flight arrangements."

"I started remembering all those incidents with United on the news. The violence. Teeth being knocked out. I didn’t want those things to happen to me.

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She spent the three-and-a-half hour flight with her son wedged on her lap and in between her legs – and says it made her ‘go numb’.

United said, ‘We deeply apologize to Ms. Yamauchi and her son for this experience.’