Beckles

The only reliable source of information I have seen is this video where the groom simply says 'marshall', it appears to be news outlets adding various qualifiers to the word marshall, sometimes US, sometimes Air, sometimes Federal Air.

Edited to Add: This article says a TSA spokesman confirmed no federal marshall or TSA employee was involved.

PTahCha

More details from Business Insider:

http://www.businessinsider.com/unite...ta-rica-2017-4

Summary:

• The couple moved from E- to E+
• Declined to pay and refused to move back
• No air marshall or LEO involved

GUWonder

Does the money-collecting FA always have time and opportunity to collect payment between when the last passenger boarded and when the plane starts moving?

Wise-Broccoli8301

Which is why they don't police the policy very hard. People do occasionally jump into E+ after the doors close, and sometimes the FAs choose to be hard about it. It doesn't change the fact that a lot of travelers feel entitled that they can do whatever they please.

p1cunnin

I think most of us who have been flying since UA introduced E+ have had some sort of encounter with seat poachers. When the E+ seat is a "complementary" perk for an elite, poachers are generally an annoyance; when you've paid up for E+, it goes beyond that. Now that I've lost status, I'm real unhappy when somebody poaches E+. Why pay up if you can just grab it for free?

For those of you griping that E+ is simply another E- seat, you're factually correct in terms of the chair. But since UA has decided to monetize those seats, it is a different matter for both the airline and the paid E+ pax. They can't allow poaching and also demand payment.

In days gone by, the worst case would be the guy already in E+ who wants the rest of his family to move up from the back of the bus and you to move back "so they can all be together". My response was, "How about you move back and send someone up here so you can all be together back there."

My sense is that these were poachers who 1) wanted their 15 minutes of fame thanks to the other incident; 2) pushed all the buttons with a FA; and 3) managed to find a "journalist" who was willing to sell the "cute newlyweds versus mean airline" story.

Manospeed

voila...

Madone59

I have had this conversation with off duty FAM, and friend working at FAA. They consider anything but a serious threat or action a distraction to mask a serious threat or action. If a FAM addresses an unruly passenger it allows a potential 'sleeper' to get the jump on the FAM and possibly neutralize them.

FA's are instructed that in case of emergency they are not even supposed to call out for the FAM as to not out them.

Back to the topic at hand:

Ya, that will get you booted.....as it should. The original article where they say a passenger was sleeping across their row was always super sketchy IMO. No FA would allow that during boarding.

Boiler84

Very unlikely that they "always have time." Virtually nothing in the world is so certain that one could say "it always happens." Why does it matter whether they "always have time" or not?

sgfood

my bad....

http://www.khou.com/news/local/bride...ston/431644313

rickg523

But if they moved when asked to - as they claim - how is that any more theft than picking up an item off a store counter and putting it back once you see the price tag? Now we've all heard stories where exactly that happened and cops were called by store managers. Typical ugly stereotypes are usually found at the root of that kind of overreaction.
Now, you can call this couple liars if you like. And claim they so aggressively refused to move back that they had to be removed for safety reasons per the crew report. Considering the accuracy of recent UA crew incident reports, I'm more apt to call it pumping up the story to justify crew actions. Which I would characterize as overreaction since the cabin was half empty.

Wise-Broccoli8301

Fair but I already see this article blowing up in my social media. The ones who are pushing this article though are the people who were most outraged by United last week who also in general are all novice travelers. I've found it interesting the consultants and air warriors on my social media are pretty quiet about both issues.

MikeMpls

Have you ever gotten on a plane during boarding and seen someone sleeping sprawled across three seats, including yours and your partner's?

I'd bet that "sleeping in our seats" was a lie they came up with for the media afterwards.

knit-in

So clearly, the FAs aren't best equipped to "revenue manage" for the airline. Best they should be left out of it. Power corrupts. Half-assed power corrupts half-assedly.

And no, this opinion doesn't apply to poaching between actual cabins.

danielonn

On the other hand at SFO I was flying on United to Maui and I went up to the gate agent to ask for a better seat towards the front and she assigned me a whole row of Economy Plus for no extra charge. We were talking about United operations at SFO and then I showed her my boarding pass and asked if there was better seats.

The Gate agent was so sweet and gave me the entire row of Economy Plus!!! I slept well that flight. I was willing to pay for Economy Plus if it came down to that. I did not even ask about Economy Plus the agent just said "here you go enjoy the extra legroom and your own row".

This was back in 2008.

danielonn

So then don't record me at the grocery store or department store when all I am trying to do is shop