lemfc

I am on PHL to PHX this morning and someone had put a laptop bag under the seat in front of me. I moved the bag - a guy across the isle told me it was his and he would get it in flight. The FA came by and I explained I wanted to use the space for my backpack. He moved my backpack to an overhead bin and told me I could get it in flight.

I boarded with group 1. This is a new one for me, I was always under the impression you "could use" the space under the seat in front of you. It's a nice Tumi bag, would it make a good foot rest?

TheBOSman

FA, as usual, chose the least confrontational option. The space under the seat in front of you should be yours. Is there no room underneath the seat in front of the other guy? If there is, ask the guy nicely to put it under his seat, your seat space is not meant to enable his legroom. If he refuses, call the FA over and explain the situation calmly. Say you'd rather not take up overhead bin space unnecessarily as it might cause bags to be gate checked and delay the flight. If FA refuses to assist, go to whoever is the on board leader. If that person refuses to assist, write in a customer service complaint at the end of the flight, claiming you were not given everything included with your ticket (as that includes the space under the seat in front of you if it exists, which it does for you), and up to you on how passive-aggressive you want to be about the underseat bag of the other guy .

nlkm9

yep, i agree the space under the seat is yours! I did sit bulkhead last nite and I asked the woman sitting in back of me if i could put my tiny purse under the seat--I would never just do it--she very nicely said yes (it was a very small bag) but had she said no i would have respected her wishes.

lemfc

I tried that early on - the guy is in a bulkhead row. We are in the air and moving along and made a fuss about his bag(s?) in the overhead at boarding. Bad manners I think more than anything. He hasn't asked for anything out of it or made eye contact for about an hour and a half.

Often1

Possession is 9/10ths of the law. I had this happen recently, removed the offending bag, placed my backpack there and the laptop in the aisle. The FA then had to deal with the offender's bag. It went up top.

Unfortunately, while most presume that the space under the seat in front of us is "ours", this isn't actually spelled out anywhere. Thus, annoying as it is, nothing prevents the crew from leaving the laptop and moving your bag to the OH.

In fact, crews are trained to defuse situations and devise non-confrontational solutions. This is one of them.

TheBOSman

If he is in a bulkhead, then he needs to put his items into the overhead bin. Again, the FA has chosen the least confrontational option, but not the correct one. I would call the FA over again, and point this out, then write in a customer service complaint at the end and possibly get a few miles.

TheBOSman

However, people in the bulkhead seat are told consistently their bags must go into the overhead bin. So, that is where this bag should go. He is violating a directive of the FA.

I would never touch someone else's bag if I didn't have to. Safety/security concern. In fact, I would not want to sit down at a seat with a bag whose origin I do not know in front of me. I also would never touch such a bag, I do not know what is inside.

lemfc

Thank you for the perspectives. At this point my backpack and sweatshirt are pinning his in, I'll move it back up in a couple of hours. I've managed a foot placement that's comfy and am in an exit row so legroom isn't too much of an issue. Still no requests for anything. As a side note - suprisingly good fruit and cheese snack today.

Often1

None of this gets to what you do when the FA does what almost any FA is trained to do, namely resolve the problem by putting your bag in the OH.

If you say that you wouldn't ever touch somebody else's bag, I wonder how you handle placing your own bag in the OH when there's another bag next to it. Surely, even if you wind up touching the bag in passing, whatever horrible disease it contains or DNA you leave on the bag is there just as surely as had you moved Offender Guy's laptop.

TheBOSman

I was thinking more along the lines of something a little more nefarious than disease or DNA. See the Bojinka plot, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philipp...nes_Flight_434.

lemfc

And now I'm off to burn all my things Creepy though.

GNRMatt

While there may be no written rule about the space for your feet also being for your own bag, it is an "un-written" rule that is followed 99.9% of the time.

For me personally, I would've asked who's it is and if someone said it was theirs I'd ask them to please remove it. If they refused, I would simply pick it up and place it in the aisle followed by putting my bag underneath the seat. If no one claimed it was theirs, I'd then move it to the aisle as well. The owner can then deal with it and complain to the FA if they'd like.

If people were still boarding and putting it into the aisle would just cause an extra traffic jam and cause us to be late, I'd pick it up and hand it to a FA and say that someone put this under the seat in front of me and let them deal with it.

phlwookie

Had something similar a few weeks back - got to my seat (2D I think) and there was a bag under it. Called the FA over and said there was an unidentified bag in my space. 1D jumped up and got it up top, where there was plenty of room.

No way would I have tolerated some random person's bag at my feet. Nor should he have wanted it at my feet for many of the same reasons. Plus the rock salt all over my left shoe that day after accidentally stepping in a pool of slush getting in the cab to go to PHL.

Spiff

1. Remove bag.

2. Offer bag to owner.

3. If 2. fails, place bag in aisle.

4. Cocktail.

shawn67

I would have placed the bag in the owners lap!