Jimmie76

I tend to agree with you on this. Obviously I don't know exactly what happened and there may have been reasons I don't know about for moving them other than the better leg room.

Had a bloke at T4 years ago when flying to BOS who was trying to blag early boarding. He made a mistake though when he suggested that the reason for needing this was his leg was still stiff and painful after an accident. To emphasise the point, he was leaning on the extended handle of his rollaboard hand luggage. He had been seated in the same exit row of WT as me but the gate agent had other ideas. She said she'd give him extra time to board but would have to move him from his seat as he wasn't able bodied enough to assist in an emergency.

Dave Noble

So you don't only want one of the best seats on the aeroplane, you want to deprive others from having them too?

You are entitled to ONE seat - the system may work to reduce the likelihood of people sitting in the adjacent seat in economy, however if someone wants to sit there and it is untaken, there os no reason to expect them not to

If wanting a higher chance of empty adjacent seat staying empty, choose a normal seat rather than one of the best

Ber2dca

I never said the passenger should turn it down if offered. It should not be offered by staff though. And I think J should not be 'filled up' at all cost with upgraders either. If you give your product away, you're devaluing it.

BrianWBrazil

My understanding has always been that paid seating means you get to choose your seat that that is guaranteed to you when you make the booking. If other passengers don't pay but these seats available when they board, I don't see a problem with that. I wanted a guarantee and paid for it; they did not want a guarantee and did not expect one so good for them. Has absolutely nothing to do with devaulation, has everything to do with guaranteeing a certainty - that is what the fee is.

IAMORGAN

I don't really think this is an issue. Ultimately I don't think Theoretical Seating is a published benefit and anyone can choose an exit row at OLCI if available so don't see the problem. BA isn't easyJet!

Calchas

I think it would be useful if cabin crew knew that the automated seating algorithms had tried to give certain people extra space, in order to encourage those folks to continue to fly BA.

Other than that I would leave it up to the CC to decide if they wanted to overrule the algorithm for whatever reasons.

Still I'm always pleased to have row 1 to myself

Calchas

I understood that the seat beside the OP was blocked so it couldn't be chosen without a BA employee overriding the block.

orbitmic

I don't think the OP is 'whinging about sitting next to them on the plane'. I think the issue is slightly different: with the possibilities that FLY gives, BA (like a number of other airlines), have decided that within a given cabin, empty middle seats are given in priority to their higher status customers.

The way they do that is that if there are 36 seats for 30 passengers including, say, 2 Golds, 4 silvers, and 24 without status, BA might decide that row 1 is only available to GCH members (6 seats for 2 people, ie a full row each), row 2 is only for SCH (6 seats for 4 people, ie free middle seat for each), and rows 3-6 are for non status pax (ie 24 seats for 24 people, ie every seat taken).

Now of course, you can find BA's policy on that matter stupid and shocking, but it remains their policy, just like it is BA's policy to upgrade some people in priority over others, to allow some people in exit rows for free and not others, and to protect some people from downgrades more than others. None of this is a formal benefit (ie you are not guaranteed an upgrade, a free middle seat, an exit row, or not to be downgraded) but it is a clear policy decision made by the airline nonetheless, to use what we could call soft perks to improve the travel experience of some specific travellers as opposed to others.

Now again, you can disagree with the policy. For instance, you may think it would be fairer that the empty seats be allocated randomly, or you could even say 'well, exit row is already a "plus", so it would be better to give the empty middle seats to people who don't have the exit row', or 'sitting couples together should take precedence over status customers getting empty middle seats'.

All those could be alternative policies, maybe better ones, maybe worse ones, but as it happens, they are not BA's policy, which is that everyone has a stab at the sitting they want through status OR payment, but beyond that, BA allocates the perks by status, and that means people who have no status and have not paid get the seats that are left within the contingent of seats BA allocates for non-status pax, whilst that non-full flights, they attribute the soft perks such as exit rows, front row seats, and part or fully empty rows by status. And the question is: should passengers and/or crew supersede BA's chosen policy on those grounds.

For instance, in my example above, the GCH in 1A has been given a fully row to herself as a soft perk. By contrast, Mr and Mrs X who have no status, did not want to pay for seats, and checked in late got 6B and 6E, the last two middle seats that were available to non-status customers. Upon boarding, chances are that they will want to sit together in 1B and 1C, which are bulkhead/exit seats and together so vastly better than what they had and it makes perfect sense from their point of view, but that also means that Mrs 1A which BA wanted to specifically treat to space available empty seats because of her status do not get it whilst Mssrs 6A, 6C, 6D, and 6F who have no status all get an empty middle seat which BA did not intend to give. Mr and Mrs X are also much less likely to pay for seats together next time since 'you always find a way once onboard'.

Again, I am not saying that the BA policy is great or stupid, sensible or shocking, but by shaming the OP as though he was some sort of selfish monster, I think the point of his query is missed, which is: 'BA has that policy that I should get the empty seats when the flight isn't full whilst the no status ones don't, and that's what check in specifically arranged, but onboard, crew members and/or passengers chose to override BA's policy and 'transfer' the empty seats to other no status customers. Is this normal or should staff effectively enforce the airline's policy whether they agree with it or not?'

To me the question is open for debate and I do not agree that either answer to that question is shocking per se.

Sure, life peace, and health are what matters most and the rest is very trivial I comparison, but is there any thread of any poster to which/whom this would not apply? I'd suggest that Flyertalk is, by definition, about an extremely unimportant topic that is way down the life of human priorities. From that point of view, I'm not entirely sure how seating, meals, or even delays of a few hours differ from one another and the assumption should be that bar terrible tragedies (and sadly they do occur), FT typically deals with trivia by its very focus and nature and that in that sense, it seems a bit unfair to me to make it that some particular trivia would be so much more illegitimate than some other type of trivia.

Theflyguy

Hi all,

I'd like to give some crew perspective to this discussion first of all at this moment I'm not (yet) BA crew however I am for another airline who also does paid seat reservations for seats with extra legroom on both short haul and long haul flights and I'm pretty sure the regulations would be the same with BA as it is with my current airline.

At the moment of booking you do indeed pay extra to obtain that specific seat with extra legroom however after boarding if there are other such seats free the crew can reseat pax to those seats only if the seats are in the same class of travel. (At my current airline pax can even select those seats at check in free of charge).

As crew we don't always invite people to those seats however I personally would do it if it could provide extra comfort to for example a very tall person who might be uncomfortable in a row with a tight seat pitch.

While I understand that you may find this practice highly inconvenient, it is allowed (unless you sat in CE and they 'upgraded' someone from ET). You would have a vaild point if the crew would ask you to move seats because that can't be done as you have pre-paid your seat.

*these are just my 2 cents and may not reflect the exact regulations of BA in any way.

orbitmic

Welcome to Flyertalk, Theflyguy!!

Dave Noble

All of this is wonderful for advanced selection of seats, but unless BA has a policy that a passenger on board is not allowed to change to untaken seats after boarding is complete, it is irrelevent

corporate-wage-slave

Thank you very much for that insight Theflyguy, and welcome to the BA forum here on Flyertalk. I am trying to work out which airline you are on! But don't answer that, your perspective here is more than good enough. Welcome on board and I hope we see more of you.

brightstar100

I can't help but think the hysteria being shown towards the OP is maybe a bit excessive.

Having said that, isn't this another example of poor execution on the part of BA - they deem something a good idea (i.e. that it is good for their commercially best customers to potentially have more space), but they then don't train/brief the frontline staff who may unwittingly overrule this, thus negating the intention.

Calchas

Hello Theflyguy! (Not inspired by the Offspring song I assume?)

Yes I believe BA does permit the crew to reseat people within the same cabin, or, most exceptionally, into a higher cabin.

That is fine. But we wonder if the cabin staff knew that the empty seats had not merely been assigned at random, but in a way intended to reward or incentivize the high status members, would the crew still have moved people around?

In any case, thank you for your perspective and I look forward to your future posts. ^ ^

Edit: One more welcome and you'll have a hat-trick

henkybaby

This.

If it is a perk it should be respected and if it isn't, why put it into FLY in the first place?