weero

New Finnair flyer here: I just rode the A340 from BKK to HEL. As Emerald I had reserved my centre aisle seat in row 3 weeks out and during OLCI also did receive my seat.

At the gate the GA made me wait for a bit and fetched a lady from the passenger crowd. She had - so the GAs said - a row 5 centre aisle seat and "needed to swap with me as her daughter was back in coach and they had a very tight connection".

I declined as row 5 is closer to coach than row 3 to which the GA explained to me that the remote control in my seat is not working and the lady would offer to switch with me as she did not need the IFE.

I declined as I did not understand her motivation for the swap. The GA and the lady were quite gracious about it and did not complain in any form. I started to feel mildly bad for being stubborn when the GA said to her "there is nothing we can do about the infant mam ...".

On the plane I had a seat neighbour who was unrelated to the lady, row 5 center was occupied by a couple with an infant and the lady was sitting in row 6.
My remote control while sluggish and prone to jamming worked fine ...

So in brief, I have no clue what the lady's purpose was and why she made the GAs ask. To be further from the infant? She wasn't even in row 5. And why do agents accommodate pax who push? I don't even want to imply that they were actively lying as the remote control looked pretty dead it just wasn't.

Looking back I reacted correctly but given that I declined it solely on the base that I did not understand what she was up to ... was that too selfish and unfriendly?

JoWa

Very weird. The story about tight connection/daughter in Y doesn´t add up at all.
What row in J wouldn´t matter, problem would be to fast track the daughter through Y cabin.
Only explanation I can think of is that the lady argued that she would be to exhausted after a sleepless night close to a crying baby to run to her connection.
But that a GA would go the extra mile because of such worries seems unlikely...
And wait a minute, this was at the gate, how on earth could the lady know about the infant already? Unless she knew these people...

weero

Tanks for your response ^ !
What made the whole episode funny in the end is that we disembarked through the centre door - row 3 was further from the exit than her row 6.
... and my connection being tighter than hers it would not seem fair for the GA to boot me .
I believe that she bugged the GA about it and they evidently complied. They were mellow and friendly and when pressured to say if there was an infant nearby they probably would have answered truthfully.

But then the story with the remote control makes no sense anymore .. so I believe that they honestly thought that the remote control was indeed defect.

intuition

Actually, AY ALWAYS disembark through middle door (2L) at HEL as the airport does not have any airbridges that connects to 1L. So that part was clearly fabricated or ignorance by the GA.


The lady was in row 6, could it be that they found someone else to swap later on? If so, then it seems the story was just like you say - she was bugging staff to get away from someone she didn't want to sit with.


Also, there might have been a report of trouble with IFE in your seat, and that was the basis for selecting you for the swap. Maybe the control wasn't broken, but that was the easy thing to say. So probably some truth to that, but maybe sweatened to fit the purpose.



To answer your initial question - I would probably deny too.

intuition

Without knowing any particulars, but departing BKK could explain it a bit? Being pushy (or even aggressive) is making it very uncomfortable for the service person in many cultures. It might have been done to help the lady "save face". If she acted outside what is socially acceptable in that context, staff could have agreed to assist just to contain the situatiuon.

weero

Good point - in Asia I used 4 times the front door, so I can understand that the GA was unaware of this procedure.
But that would have required a double swap. A couple occupied row 5 centre - the seat the GA claimed she held . They would have had to be transferred to 5 and she moved to 6...
I hope that too - don't want to believe that a GA would lie on behalf of a demanding passenger. That would be odd.
Thanks. That was the input I sought.

aster

Still curious how the lady even knew that there would be an infant seated next to her. It's not like they ever "warn" pax about this, and I have never inquired upon check-in as to who's sitting next to me.

weero

Ha!
I have seen people asking at checking in with your favourite airline ever and the clerk answered truthfully.

It does happen ... I would not dare to ask either.

Upon a misconnect the LH clerk once asked me where I wanted to sit on the plane, warning me that the flight is "rather full" (i.e. no empty seat next to me). I asked if there is a young female to be sat next to ...and he did indeed check and plant me there ^ . It was just meant as a simpleton joke but I gladly accepted.

remymartin

^^^

aster

+2 :-: @:-) ^

calvinshuhfc

I should start doing that every time I fly ^

intuition

Be careful what you wish for...

On CKG-HEL, I was given the pleasures of having an young woman seated next to me, due to AY overselling Y by approx 40 pax. The delights included climbing on seat, ChongQing style chicken wings everywhere, pictures taken of every detail of seat/cabin/food, giggles when seat actually reclined when recline-button was pressed and a constant and loud discussion in sichuanese mandarin with some other upgraders diametrically across the cabin.

I did manage to converse her for about 2 minutes though.



BTW, you all know that AY has the "social check-in", where you can connect with unknown people on your flight? No idea if it works though, the tool need to have many users before there even is a slight chance 2 users are on the same flight at the same time.

Courmisch

It returns an error everytime I try (Chromium browser), and -consequently- I have never seen the face of any other passenger. Spamming my Facebook with the Finnair check-ins works fine though.

calvinshuhfc

I, too, would take pictures of the seat/cabin/food especially when I fly in J because I don't usually get the chance to do that...

Others (especially the last one) are just stereotypical mainland Chinese behaviour.

Dan72

Funny story. But have AY ever served Jakarta?