allymc316

Hi,

Flew from LHR to LAS last week sat in 28B on the 52J config 747.

The passenger in 29A continually pushed and climbed over me to get out of his seat. On one occasion he woke me to get past me again!

Now tell me, am I in the wrong but I paid £116 for two exit row seats and did not expect this.

I asked him politely to use his row as an entrance and exit to his set. He just said no, he WILL be climbing over me the whole flight and that was that! TOUGH I told him in no uncertain terms that that was not an option and if he wanted to use my row as an exit he should have booked the seat i am sat in. He then proceeded to curse at me and I can only assume he went to the crew as he disappeared for some time. When he reappeared again he used his own row from then on to enter and exit and did not disturb me for the rest of the flight.

Whilst I do realise there is some room to make your way past 28B from 29A, this guy was up and down every 10 minutes and as soon as he woke me that was the end of it. I put up with it as much as I could.

I just wondered if anyone else has had similar times sat in 28B as this would be a big negative to the seat.

Oh and Hello! first post as it was my first flight with BA but I have been reading the forums for a while!...... be gentle!

Tiffywren

Hi Allymc316 welcome to the BAEC board, doesn't sound like a fun flight

windowontheAside

I've had this a couple of times. Worst was an elderly lady who needed to get out frequently. She wasn't very steady and each time would grab my leg to steady herself. She was full of apologies each time, and it's hard to be churlish with a frail lady trying to do her best, but waking several times from deep sleep as a hand sank into my thigh was very unnerving!

T8191

Welcome to the Forum, allymc316, and good luck with the responses.

Skyrocker

These sort of things happen all the time. And some people think because they paid for their seat or even got the seats randomly, they get some sort of privilege which allow them to act this way.

corporate-wage-slave

Welcome to Flyertalk, and welcome to the BA forum allymc316. Thank you for joining up here, and I very much hope we will see more from you. Just to help those unaware of the WT layout there, here is the relevant seat map:



I am hoping that after discussion with the cabin crew, your near neighbour was invited to use their own row for exit. One tactic is to scatter some possessions or bags along your side of the seat to make it tricky for people to clamber over into your row. I guess the other argument is that it is shared space on public transport, no one "owns" anything here. Well, apart, ideally, from a bit of commonsense and mutual respect, but that's often in short supply.

Anyway I needed to put that map since this forum is extremely good at illustrating how to sit a little further forward on the aircraft. Quite a number of experienced travellers here wouldn't have a clue about this, and so if you stick around here long enough you need never encounter this problem again!

TheMajor

Was the money you paid, specifically for an exit row, or just the charge for (any) seat selection?

Dicksbits

I sat in 29K on the way to BOS a couple of years ago, my parents sat in 28H&K. I was Silver at the time, and I paid £150 for the 3 seats. I must admit I did go forward to use the loo, departing and arriving through that gap, partly due to the fact that the strangers in 29H/J were asleep. I agree it's a bit of a grey area, and have seen people doing the same thing on a 321 aircraft. It is intrusive if you're in the front two rows though I guess, as the gap is very small unless you do indeed 'clamber' around the front row occupant. I don't think it was designed for this at all.

Flexible preferences

Haha

Thank you windowontheAside, that really made me laugh. Perhaps you should be grateful for small pleasures...

NWIFlyer

I sympathise. It's possible, if you're being charitable, to think that the person in row 29 thought they were actually disturbing less people by trying to squeeze through the gap, but once you'd drawn attention to the issues that was causing you, you would rather hope their common sense would kick in and they'd stop. Sadly, not everyone who travels seems to be blessed with copious amounts of it sometimes.

Fortunately it also sounds like the cabin crew did a good job in pointing out to your unwanted companion that there really is insufficient gap to get through, and that was enough to focus their mind. You might even consider submitting a positive comment to BA about the crew's apparent ability to diffuse this without introducing further conflict between you and the other passenger, which you could most certainly have done without if you were trying to sleep.

Anyway, as others have said - welcome to FT and the BA board, and let's hope you can find enough gems in here to elevate you into WTP and above. Of course, when you make it to Club World, you'll find the whole stepping over thing becomes pretty much mandatory!

jamesreid978

I have sat in 29A before on a 747, and exited out in front rather than going past 29B and C. Mainly because I remember the armrest between A and B being much bigger than usual and immovable, making it really hard to actually get out to the right. I actually thought the normal way of exiting 29A was through the front. I have also sat in 28B and it was not intrusive in the slightest when 29A exited to the left of me. Maybe a crew member familiar with the plane can clear things up?

Foltan

I've got out of this seat in the forwards direction too, albeit on the 'K' side - I don't think I was particularly annoying/disturbing to the occupant, I certainly didn't touch them or make them move.

I can see how it'd be irritating, particularly if they did it regularly - I hate people invading my personal space! However, as someone has mentioned, is it really 'rude' of them if they are disturbing one person rather than two?!

In my case, I was travelling alone so would have had to ask two people to get out for me, rather than squeeze past a single person that doesn't have to move at all.

Sometimes it's worth putting yourself in other people's shoes and trying to see their view rather than just starting an argument. I'm sure the guy didn't enjoy being barked at when he was probably just trying to do his neighbours a favour.

simons1

If you purchase 28B does that entitle you to the surrounding space too then?

Bit irritating I can imagine but I had always understood that paying for a seat was just that.

LTN Phobia

I'd have thought that the polite thing for him would have been to disturb all passengers around him equally by distributing the pain, unless he could get out through the side of 28B without disturbing 28B.

I'm pretty sure I got out of 29A seat without remotely touching the passenger in 28B though, and in which case it would be more sensible to take that path.

But it sounds like the frequency of disturbance was one of the bad things about the OP's situation. It would have been annoying, and really, if I needed to get out of my seat so often, I'd choose an aisle seat to avoid annoying people too often.

Paralytic

If you'd had your wits about you, a few tears and you could have bagged yourself an upgrade to CW!

Disgusting harassment behaviour by seatmate in WTP to SEA. What can be done?