Ditto

Something I have yet to see happened to me on AZ132 flight (FCO-AMS), during OLCI and when boarding the plane, the configuration was 4 rows Business class, after a few minutes they suddenly stopped boarding and changed the configuration to 2 rows business class, struggling to put in the new head rest cover before people actually boarded and took a seat in rows 3&4.
In total there were 6 pax seating in rows 3&4, and it seems the rest of the airplane was full.

Has anyone ever encountered this before? I fly about 10 short haul flights with them every year, and have never seen this.
Seems like upgrading 6 pax to business would have been easier...

irishguy28

It happens from time to time!

I have seen them move the curtains while onboard on more than one occasion (forget which airline(s) though!)

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...tain-move.html

This has come up in other threads for a range of airlines - I remember once someone even posting a funny advert where the guy realises after boarding that he's supposed to be in Business Class, and shows the flight atendant, who merely pushes the curtain rail back past his seat!

By the way, they can't "upgrade" pax just because someone was slow in moving the curtain. The aircraft will only have been catered for the number of confirmed business class passengers (possibly with one or two spares) but being tardy in "re-configuring" the plane is not any justification for offering the pax in rows 3 & 4 a different service than what they actually paid for. Plus, it would look "wrong", too, if the economy cabin was full and these last two rows of "business" were therefore full with 3 in each row on each side...

Ditto

I guess there is a first time for everything ;-)

It seems though as if there was something else here than just being slow in moving the curtain, given that they only had 6 pax seating in those 2 rows and 6 empty seats, while the rest of the airplane was full, as well as OLCI showing rows 3 & 4 as business.

AlicorporateUK

It does happen quite often on those services operated by 321s, where you'd normally see 7/8 business class rows stricken off during on-line check-in, which would normally revert back to 3/4 rows upon departure.

G

irishguy28

Whatever you saw at OLCI [and there is no law saying that they can't change the cabin configuration after OLCI commences; you have proof that economy passengers were able to - eventually - check-in and select rows 3 and 4, and you must also be satisfied that no business class customers ended up sitting in rows 3 and 4], by the time the flight was boarding, there were only supposed to be 2 rows of business. Whether they originally worked off an "old" setup and actually first moved the curtain to the wrong location - or, as I think is more likely, the curtain remained where it was after having 4 rows of business on the previous flight - in the end, the "final" mistake was being slow in adapting the plane to the required configuration.

You say that it seems that the rest of the plane was full - and they therefore apparently had an overbooked economy cabin. If any business class passengers had already selected a seat in rows 3 and 4, then they could have been moved and given a new boarding pass at the gate, to seat them in rows 1 & 2. There's your reason to reclaim 2 unused business class rows!!!

Xandrios

I have seen this happen with KLM as well. Generally its a matter of crew forgetting and/or not having time to move the divider before boarding starts.

KLouis

Am I correct that you were one of the 6 passengers in rows 3 and 4 and that you wished they had upgraded you instead?

Ditto

Nope, I was seated at row 5.