The flight was no doubt full and those passengers who were moved to doors 3 would have been staff. The staff would not have had a seat in the cabin and would have been offered the spare cabin crew jump seats for take off and landing, not in the flight deck (only cabin crew and pilots can be given flight deck jump seats).

We generally offer as many jump seats as we can when the flights are full to try and get our colleagues back home, or away to their destination. If we don't the only other option is that they get left behind, the joys of BA Staff Travel!!!

The number of cabin jump seats varies from aircraft to aircraft but almost always the spare cabin crew jump seats are in the galleys. This presents a problem when we start the service as the staff need to leave the galley to let us get on with things. On the 747 they are normally asked to use the jump seats at doors 3, or doors 5 for the duration of the flight.

I appreciate it might not have been what you were expected having someone sit opposite you for the flight but it doesn't happen that often and when it does it is a last ditch effort to get someone home. In the good old days on the 747 we could move the staff to the cabin crew rest area at the back of the aircraft, but for security reasons we are not allowed to do this anymore, even with our own staff!!!