Don't miss out! Join the thousands of people who subscribe to our once-daily email or our free miles and points Facebook group with all the best travel news. Points With a Crew has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Points With a Crew and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers.
Reality star Kim Zolciak says she and her family were kicked off a Delta flight because of “misbehaving” and crying kids. This is at least the contention of one airline employee. The family had boarded the Atlanta-bound aircraft, but were later escorted off by a gate agent. Brielle Biermann, Kim’s daughter, fired off a series of tweets expressing both her displeasure with the situation. And that the police were now involved.
Brielle at least hints as to what the real reason was: her dad had stayed behind to finish paperwork bringing their “service” dog through security. He then arrived at the gate after the aircraft door had closed, meaning he and the dog would be staying behind while the rest of the family took off. It’s not clear who made the decision to remove the family at this point. Delta says the family chose to deplane.
An Emotional Issue
Reading between the lines of what the family says happened, it really seems like the entire issue is centered around the service animal. Delta calls it an emotional support animal in their own statement. Rather than garnering sympathy, the family took heat from some following the situation. It sounds like they don’t actually have an ESA, and are more or less taking advantage of the policy to bring their dog on board. This is a major pet peeve of mine. It doesn’t seem that there was any issue bringing the animal on board, just that Kroy Biermann was delayed with paperwork, resulting in the late arrival at the gate.
For their part, Delta denies that the family was removed. The airline’s claim is that the family elected to deplane once they knew Kroy would not be flying with them due to arriving too late. How this turned into being thrown off the flight for kids misbehaving and crying is beyond me.
While I would normally sympathize with parents that actually experienced poor treatment by an airline, what actually happened here seems to be much different than what the family is making it out to be.
Points With a Crew has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Points With a Crew and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Responses are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered. Other links on this page may also pay me a commission - as always, thanks for your support if you use them
Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
Let me guess. They arrived late and couldn’t get the dog through security so the mother and kids got on the plane. When the father missed door closing the kids started crying about the dog not making the flight with them so the whole situation went south and they got upset, made a scene at the expense of other passengers and then tried to take it viral only to have it backfire on this as they are out of touch with 90% of society (the other 10% are the type that follows them on social media).
Don’t feel bad about people with service dogs. There was a service dog at the centurion DFW today barking and going crazy. If you have a pet. Don’t fly with it. Hopefully they ban all animals. Living in china I never see full size dogs on planes. But in America with stupid Americans I do.
I have trained 5 service dogs. They are very well behaved in public. When you see a service dog acting badly, it probably wasn’t trained by a service dog provider. Some people just declare their dog as a service dog without training it. The law allows this.
Ironically, when reading this article I got 3(!) ads for a quick three step program for “Lifetime Animal Support Registration”…
Ha! Too funny.
I fly frequently from the U.K. and have never seen an animal on a flight, this winter we have three US internal flights booked, my husband is allergic to animal hair it brings on severe asthma, what happens if there is a person with a ‘service animal” seated next to us on a flight?
Not a whole lot without unless the airline can accommodate you. You’ll have to explain the situation to the FA, who can hopefully seat you well away from them.
Speak with them before boarding and most try to accommodate in that they’ll be sure you’re seated far away from the dog. We’reallergic as well.
About 1.5 years ago, my son, his wife and 1 year old were ticketed and checked in on a Southwest flight Dallas to Harlingen. They board and find 3 seats and mom and baby seat themselves in one row, Son sees the empty seat, tries to sit down, and another woman with infant in lap says she’s “saving it for her husband.” He had been delayed at security because he was carrying about 2 quarts of unlabeled breast milk in an insulated carry-on. TSA agent does the right thing in checking this guy out. Meanwhile on the plane, son asks FA to instruct the woman she can’t “hold” a seat. No luck. Long story short, he demanded and received a significant flight credit from Southwest in addition to a confirmed seat on the next Harlingen flight.
He should not have rec’d any credit at all. SWA has “no policy” on saving seats. He could have taken another seat elsewhere. Why the big fuss over THAT seat.
Sorry, left out a key detail. The seat the woman was trying to “save” was the last empty one.
My son was denied boarding despite being on time at the gate.
Since the woman’s husband had not met the time deadline for boarding, he would not have been allowed to board in any event. SW refused to tell the woman she couldn’t save the empty seat, but the woman’s husband did show up before the doors closed, and this resulted in my son’s being involuntarily bumped. So yes, he should have and did receive compensation. In my opinion my son could have sued SW because they were violating their own contract of carriage. He opted for their compensation which was quite generous.
Probably because of the fake service dog. I mean when you’re on a reality show and that “service dog” bites your child I’m pretty sure that is no real service dog. Just a bunch of self entitled rednecks.
It’s a safe bet it’s not a real service dog. They’re taking advantage of the system.
As many do. Can’t wait until they’re all banned.
🙂 I can only wonder when someone will try to claim they need their “emotional support cobra” with them on the plane 🙂