How many people can you cram in two business class seats?

Interesting experience DEN-HNL on Sunday. 777-200 HD configuration. I'm up in front in 1A and the folks in 2A/2B decide its ok if they invite their traveling companion from economy to share their seats. Literally, 3 people sharing 2A/2B seats continually rotating one person on the floor, or leaning on and over the screens for 1A/1B, standing in the aisle, sitting on the footrest (dont know how they did that comfortably). Purser notices this during service and sends the offender back to cattle class. Lights go off after service and the interloper comes back up and the show continues. I let this go for a couple hours then finally decide I have had enough of the extra person jumping around in my line of sight. I have a talk with the purser quietly and she again sends the interloper back to economy again. Question for flyertalkers, ever seen this before and what are the official UA rules on this? Reportable? Moderator: Move to another thread on this if one exists. I cant find one that addresses this exactly.

I believe the official rule is that is not allowed at all. I have even heard of UA bringing police on board because of it, I remember a flight SIN-SFO where that happened and a husband and wife were switching between seats and carrying their kids with them, etc.

If I was in your position I wouldn't have put up with it for a few hours, that's for sure.

UA's safety and security policy requires that passengers remain in their ticketed cabin absent crew member permission. Once that policy is filed with the FAA, the failure to follow it is a violation of FAA rules. This is up to the carrier. By way of example, it is not an AA safety & security policy (not to suggest that it is OK to cram 3 passengers into 2 seats).

It is also a violation to seat a person over age 2 (in chronological, not behavioral years), so yet another violation. This one matters in case of unexpected turbulence. While one could say that it is the idiot's problem, it is also your problem if the idiot goes flying and lands on you.

The FA ought to have given the trespasser the boot the second he showed up without permission. The fact that it was repeated and that you had to report it shows that the FA was not paying attention to something that UA considers a safety and security issue (whether it is, is irrelevant and not the subject of this thread).

As a general matter, I would have said something to the FA about 2 minutes into episode one and made it clear that you are going to overlook the failure if it is dealt with immediately.

Despite the fact that the flight is now over, I would send UA a short note making it clear that you are not scrounging like a beggar for "compensation" but you do want UA to speak with the FA responsible for that cabin.

Yeah that's some pretty poor service if the FAs didn't even notice this was ongoing.

I don't have a problem if folks want to switch once midway through the flight, assuming the FA/purser is ok with it. I also don't have an issue if a companion in a different cabin wants to come by for a little while while the seatbelt sign is off to quietly chat, as long as they are cognizant of others trying to move about the aisle(and FA is ok with it). I know others might disagree and not want to allow either of those things, and that's ok. But constantly switching, bringing an extra person into a seat, or anyone coming up talking loudly, or being inconsiderate of others needs (I.e., won't move so someone can get by in the aisle, gets annoyed when the carts, etc. come through) has no place (in any cabin, mind you).

The situation you describe seems like a safety violation to me. Purser should have made sure the offender stayed back in Y once they tried to abuse the situation.

In fact, based on the description, Id report it.

The answer is four, BTW. Two adults and two lap children. I've seen this -- a couple with a pair of what I estimate were ~18 month old twins on a flight from either BRU or GVA to IAD. I know it was a pmUA 76-3 which is why the route sticks out. It was a daytime flight, and fortunately a smooth one at that, as they basically turned the aisle seat into a flat fence and let the kids stand up, sit down, play around in the area between that and the window. The kids were reasonably well behaved so I found it amusing more than anything else. But that's very different from your scenario.

+1. The most egregious I've seen was when I was in 3A on a 738, and 3B was a mother who had a husband and child back in row 7. The kid visited both parents, the parents swapped seats once during the flight, and I think they all sat in row 7 (7B was empty?) during landing.

But even that didn't bother me all that much. If the conduct was actually interfering with my quiet enjoyment of my seat, I would have had a word with the purser.

I was flying Lufthansa from FRA-DFW and for whatever reason I was downgraded to Economy, to this day I am not entirely sure as to why.

My Wife was still seated in Business and we asked the Flight Attendant if we could spend some time together during the flight.

She gave her permission but suggested the galley area be more appropriate than the seat so as not to disturb the fellow passengers.

She even provided us some used galley containers and some cushions from the jump seats for us to sit on.

The best part was that she brought us a bottle of wine and two glasses for us to share and continually checked on us to see if we were comfortable.

I have no idea if it was appropriate or not, but it did make a for a nice flight and odd for this site, I actually don't enjoy flying and that flight went by in record time.

How to Win Friends and Influence People

report it to UA. The FAs in First need to find a new job. Absolutely unacceptable.

I understand being bothered by someone from another cabin stomping up and down the aisles or occupying bathrooms that they're not entitled to. But how exactly does having an extra person "in your line of sight" put you out so terribly? Especially in the dark.

I think swapping J/Y with a travel companion once during a flight is hardly a big deal. People need to mind their own business.

I think you meant to post this in a different thread . . . no one here's objecting to a one time swap.

Actually it's useful for that comment to be here because it dovetails with what I wrote above. If passengers start making a big fuss about "interlopers" who aren't particularly being a nuisance, the likely response will be to crack down on one time swaps and All inter-cabin visits.

Our brains are built so that a moving object in our peripheral visual fields attracts our attention. Our ancestors were less likely to become tiger food because of this.

It can become annoying.