jackal

Gate agents, yes. In-flight crews? Not so sure about that, except for extenuating circumstances after departure (unruly passenger on-board, medical emergency, etc.), and before departure, not without consulting the GA.

chinatraderjmr

Actually, OP indicated something about 23 min before departure. sCO Boarding starts 45 min before departure which is ridiculous. I don't board 45 min before or even a half hour before. As long as I board at least 15 min before departure I expect my seat to be empty and available for me. NO WHERE does it say that Group 1 MUST board first, only that they can. If OP boarded to late, he would have lost his seat entirely. It's not up to the crew to decide who sits where

bluegrinch

The OP has had a quite rude experience with a sCO employee. Totally unacceptable but it happens. Still, because it has happened once, all of a sudden, every sCO employee is a brute and they are all to be avoided as if they had a infectious disease.

But it is the OP's fault in fact because everyone knows all pmUA 1Ks are self-entitled jerks and sCO crew are getting tired of their antics.

No, it's pmCO elites' fault because they are such pansies they put up with lousy service for years, giving sCO employees the impression that it is ok to treat everyone like the OP was.

After all, it is the OP's fault because he boarded late! No, he boarded on time and how on earth does anyone dare criticize his boarding choice anyway, he is living out of a suitcase, that gives him the right do to absolutely what he wants, he practically owns the airline! Still, must be his fault, he should have rushed the gate and be first on board...

Nevermind, he should have stood in the aisle and demanded his original seat (until he was told he was interfering with crew perhaps).

All that because an employee was unacceptably rude and someone thought it worth sharing with the rest of us...

beltway

This.

moomin

Difficult to tell. If the OP said, without thinking, "oh, I had been hoping to avoid the bulkhead", but wasn't making a song and dance about it, then the FA's response is hard to forgive. Sure, it would have been better in some ways to just be silently disappointed, but when you're disappointed, you will sometimes say so. It's only natural. But the FA response should have been "oh, I'm so sorry, but we got to 23 minutes to go and these folks wanted to switch to seat together, I'd really quite like to leave them where they are now, since we're almost ready to go, would that be okay with you? I'd be really grateful" - that's what I'd say to a customer, and chances are - if the OP is decent enough - they'd let it go and say "what the heck? sure, I should have turned up earlier". And then a bit of extra attention, fast service on the drinks, snacks, whatever, and everyone is happy and all is sorted. So - assuming that the OP didn't come across as angry, over-entitled, and intransigent, and we have no reason to think that they did, it really does suggest a poor attitude from the FA. And an embarrassing situation - no-one needs to be scolded in front of others by someone in authority, and then have to sit there for hours. It doesn't feel good, first world or not.

FlyWorld

That is basically correct.

beltway

I strongly disagree.

There are occasions where a pre-emptive move at T-23 makes sense, e.g., blind/disabled pax has been assigned to exit row. (I suspect few would complain about being displaced into an exit row, but FT is always full of surprises.)

An FA who pulls this stunt at T-23 for a purely discretionary reason (like a couple wanting to sit together), especially in F, needs a reprimand, retraining, or both. And the later-arriving pax who feels wronged is not being DYKWIA; on the contrary, this is the entirely acceptable HMBPRIAW: Here's My Boarding Pass, Read It And Weep.

FlyWorld

At the root, I disagree with the ridiculing attitude some posters are showing towards OP. It has always been the case with UA that you get to choose your seat when you purchase a ticket, and UA will honor that seat choice - changing it only in exceptional circumstances when there is no reasonable alternative, usually due to equipment change. And, elites have always enjoyed certain limited advantages in seat selection. Our expectation comes from years of experience being respected in this way.

Apparently, sCO folks, so accustomed to the Ryanair model of air travel, think we're over-entitled because they never even contemplated the idea that a seat assignment might have meaning.

It comes down to this: Should the airline respect our seat selections, moving them only under exceptional circumstances? Or, should seat assignments be interpreted merely as a suggestion to be modified at the whim of anyone who has access to the right computer system?

Does COdbaUA have an actual policy on this?

I still avoid sCO equipment and crews and have never experienced this nonsense on an sUA route, even after 3/3.

If we could sort this out, the rest would follow.

JeffS

I believe it is 35 minutes prior to departure for narrow body aircraft.

halls120

Yes, the sUA management and staff actually appreciate their frequent fliers, whereas the sCO management and staff appreciate them on a transactional basis only.

Italyceo

I've read a lot of neg remarks of sCO cabin crew on this site recently. I take them with a grain of salt, so i did my own research. On my flight from IAD-ORD, I made sure I got on a CO bird. I received the best service ever. I asked the crew why they think that they were getting such a bad rap. The reply makes sense. They said flying in and out of ORD they must deal with the most irrational and demanding sUA FFs. They said this was only true with business men. I like the planes, they seem much newer than the sUA crap that I'm use to. As for their uniforms? Much more professional and stylish than the sUA bathrobes for women and belly dancer vests for the men. Thank you for opening my eyes guys. Fact is...you cannot believe everything you read. One must be smart and do their own research. Thank you sCO...I had a great flight and I'll be back. Sorry UA is screwing up your great past reputation. To my fellow businessmen...sit back...chillax. Its not that serious. Smile at them, maybe a compliment every now and then. Those folks are humans, not robot personal asst you hired.

moomin

Oh, I strongly agree. Wait until the doors close. I was talking about how they should approach the problem they've created, if they wanted to avoid the hassle and embarrassment of moving the folks again - and perhaps, who knows, there was a good reason somewhere in all that. But it really shouldn't have come to that in the first place, and that was the FA (or GA)'s fault.

My point was simply that the way that the FA apparently behaved, following the arrival of the OP, was hard to forgive.

UA-NYC

Welcome to FT

These "business men" are the ones who are the company's stated target, and the ones likely contributing most heavily to any profit earned. I've heard the same line from other PMCO FAs too - we get it, they don't like the heavy UA flyers who think they should get their first choice of meal even if in row 3. But they're the ones who pay the salaries (and help generate incentive comp...)

chinatraderjmr

I've had some great sCO crews & some horrible ones, I've had great sUA crews & some horrible ones as well. You can't make a blanket statement about 40,000 employees. The times I've had horrible crews, they have been truly horrible. The problem is we shouldn't blame UA or CO. The blame needs to fall squarely on the shoulders of Mgmnt who lets them get away with such crap as well as the unions for making it virtually impossible to dismiss an employee

Anyone that says "all CO crews are the worst or ALL UA crews are the best either does not fly very much or just likes to hear himself talk

+1.

MR_MAMA

WHAT? Who said it was less than 15 min before boarding and if the door is still open it is never to late to board. While I am short and probably wouldn't care if I switched seats, I would like the courtesy of someone asking me first.