TheSkyGuy

Any FA making the effort to enforce and protect MCE is on a power trip. Once the door is closed, as long as you stay in your ticketed cabin, it's an essential free for all. This isn't Delta where part of economy is treated as a separate product.

Actually, yes.

pinniped

But what about an FA making the effort to protect the passengers sitting in MCE? People who are either AA loyalists or people who paid for an MCE seat.

While none of us is entitled to an empty middle seat, and we all expect flights to generally be full anyway, why should the AA elite or the person who paid for MCE have to suffer because others come and take it for free? If that behavior is openly permitted, it would make me less likely to ever pay for MCE. As it is, if I'm ever again in a window seat and the door closes with aisle/middle empty, I'm immediately sliding to the middle seat to discourage a pair of poachers from moving up together. Before yesterday, I'd have definitely remained at the window in hopes that one person in a full three-person row in MCE would take the seat.

Does it matter that Delta markets C+ a little differently? If a DL FA prevents someone from poaching C+, are they power-tripping? UA FA's *do* prevent it: are they all power-tripping? (OK, bad timing on that question... ) What makes it different? It's essentially the same product.

enviroian

If your in regular economy I can see that POV. If your in MCE I cannot. In MCE I would be happy to have the flight attendant protect the integrity of MCE seats and those who shelled out $$ or elite benefits to legitimately get them.

cynicAAl

is this your opinion, or it is AA policy ? I just asked a friend who is an AA purser, and although he doesn't work coach, he was pretty sure that the self-upgrading is not allowed. This makes sense as this is what I consistently see being done by coach FAs (sending back the self-upgrader back to their ticketed seat).

jayer

The historically more normal experience is flight attendants telling people to get out of the middle and take any reasonably nearby better seat. Especially the exit row. If I run into one or two I know who have still not retired I'll ask if it has changed.

TheSkyGuy

Policy is that any open seat in your ticketed cabin is fair game once the door is closed. Self upgrading between cabins is not allowed.

flyerCO

For purposes of cabin in this regard AA I believes considers MCE separate. It might not be an officially separate cabin, with other amenities. However on last few flights I know AA FAs have told MCE seat poachers they had to sit in a regular seat. Can you show use anything that would say these FAS are wrong? Doing as you suggest would entice people to never pay for MCE.

BTW, as a side note I just found out that AA will refund MCE purchases if they must move you from a MCE aisle/window to a MCE middle.

JonNYC

Thanks again for the clarification!

pinniped

I've seen that semi-often if (a) a pair of people move to an empty exit row or (b) a single person moves to exit-aisle when exit-window is occupied.

I do *not* think it's common for TWO people to move into an exit row when one person is already seated there. In the future, when I have exit-window (as I do semi-often on AA), I will probably occupy exit-middle when I'm in this situation...at least making my row less-appealing to poachers from afar. (I realize flights are often full, but I actually fly enough Tuesday morning flights where they aren't.)

869

Meh - I have no idea what the policy is but, if this is the case, it's really poor judgement. No one is coming and taking an un-ticketed, un-paid for, premium middle seat next to me once the door closes. Ain't happening. Roll tape.

rjw242

Not really anything you can do about it, is there?

JonNYC

Sounds to me like he feels there definitely -is- something he can do about it. Which then in turn sounds to -me- like the informative/useful portion of this thread is quickly coming to an end, if ya know what I mean.

LovePrunes

Looks like the guy making threats above will be starring in the next youtube video of airline drama

chitink

Prior to gaining status, I would ask at the gate for better seats and 85% of the time they gave them to me. I also asked onboard if I could move the FA never told me no.

rjw242

Nah, internet bluster almost never spills over into the real world.