In yet another airline public relations nightmare, US carrier Delta Airlines has been forced to apologise to a Californian family who claimed they were kicked off a flight after refusing to give up their baby’s seat.

The Schear family were flying from Maui, Hawaii, to Los Angeles on April 23 when asked by Delta employees to relinquish a seat occupied by their one-year-old son for another passenger.

Father Brian Schear refused to give up the seat on the basis he had paid for it, but airline staff proceeded to threaten him and his wife, Brittany, with jail.

“Sir, that’s a federal offence and you and your wife will be in jail and then your kids will be in foster care,” a flight attendant said, in a video shot by another passenger.

The entire incident was captured on video, with flight attendants initially asking Mr Schear and his wife to hold the infant on their laps for the duration of their flight.

When they refused, they were asked to get off the plane, despite having no accommodation booked and no other flights to move on to.

“What are we supposed to do when we’re off this plane?” Mr Schear asked.

“That is not up to me,” the flight attendant responded.

The Schears young children were removed from a red-eye flight between Hawaii and Los Angeles.

Mr Schear had originally booked the seat for his 18-year-old son Mason, but when Mason ended up going home on an earlier flight, they decided to use the seat for their younger son, who was strapped in to a car seat.

“They scanned all our tickets and let us onto the plane,” Mr Schear told ABC News in the US, claiming the airline knew about the swap.

The Schears were eventually removed from the plane and forced to find a hotel for the night. Mr Schear claimed it cost him $US2000 ($A2710) to fly the whole family home the following day.

Delta Airlines apologised in a statement, describing the incident as “an unfortunate experience” and said it had reached out to the Schear family to refund their travel and provide additional compensation.

“Delta’s goal is to always work with customers in an attempt to find solutions to their travel issues. That did not happen in this case and we apologise.”

Mr Schear told CBS News the incident was very clearly caused by the airline overbooking the plane.

“As we were leaving the plane, there’s four or five passengers waiting for our seat. The bottom line is, they oversold the flight,” he said.

The Schears maintain they don’t want money from the airline, merely an explanation.

“The whole idea of a customer has been somehow lost now,” Mr Schear told ABC News.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7pM8IyxpTc