Operational upgrades - how can you choose when to block them?
This is a topic that has been bothering me for some months now, but it came to a head this week with a somewhat unpleasant incident.
Those who have flown with me know that I am a very low maintenance traveler. With my noise cancelling headphones, an eye mask and a sleeping pill, I can sleep through pretty much anything short of a crash. I carry my own food and drinks on board, so I can live my flight pretty much independently of the crew enforced timetable for eating, sleeping, etc.. Indeed, I have spent many enjoyable 8+ hour flights without ever interacting with a single member of the crew.
I flew from India to Dubai earlier this week and onward to my final destination. As is customary around this time of year, the flight from India to Dubai was oversold. I had pre-selected my favourite seat on the 77W to ensure that I could maximise my sleep on this sector. At check-in, I specifically asked the check-in agent to ensure that I was NOT moved around due to the oversale. All was well, until I reached the jetway. There, a man was waiting for me (and a couple others) with a printed manifest and advised me that I had been moved to seat 7E, a middle seat in Business Class.
I do not fly in middle seats. Period. I do not enjoy the experience, and I will be damned if I am going to pay good money for an experience that I do not enjoy. Not in Economy Class, not in Business Class and not in First Class (not that First has any middle seats though). If the only available seat on a plane is a middle seat and my schedule is flexible, I will rather get off and wait for the next flight than fly in a middle seat.
This is not the first time this has happened to me. FOUR times this year, I have been involuntarily moved to a different cabin despite specifically having requested NOT to be moved at the counter and/or lounge. On each of those occasions however, I was able to swap with a member of my travel party who still held a seat that I was willing to fly in. Today, I had no such luck as I was traveling alone.
When I check-in and receive a boarding pass for a specific seat, I expect not to be moved from that seat without my consent for anything other than safety reasons. I am one of your most frequent customers, not some pawn to be shuffled around on your seatmap at the whim of a load controller. I have plenty of Skywards Miles in my account - if I wanted that Business Class seat, I'd have bought it or upgraded into it already. Please do not be so presumptuous to assume that I wish to be upgraded without the simple courtesy of asking me. I am more than willing to assist you with your oversale situation by accepting an involuntary move to a different seat, but only if that different seat does not cause me more inconvenience and discomfort. Moving me to a middle seat, even if it is a flat bed middle seat, causes me more inconvenience and discomfort.
Anyway, back to the narrative. The guy with the list seemed a bit flustered when I told him that I did not want 7E. He spoke to someone on a radio and then told me to go on board and take my original seat. So I did. Until 10 minutes later, one of the cabin crew comes up to me and asks to see my boarding pass. Which I show her. Alas, we have a seat dupe. Looks like the guy with the list didn't do anything other than pass the buck to the poor crew.
For the next 20 minutes, there was lots of hemming and hawing and calls back and forth with the Purser while they tried to resolve the situation. I refused to accept the new seat assignment and the gentleman with the seat dupe, after hearing that it was a middle seat, also refused to accept it. The SFS tried to get a bit assertive by saying that we would be offloaded if we refused to accept the new seat, but backed down when I said that I'd be happy to be offloaded and that they should start looking for my baggage if that was their decision.
Eventually, they started asking around the other passengers nearby if anyone was willing to swap seats. A young lad in row 48 aisle was willing and my seat dupe took his seat while I continued to stay in row 50. We pushed back a few minutes late as a result, but arrived in Dubai comfortably on schedule.
The entirely avoidable incident left myself, the other passengers and the crew in a poor frame of mind for the rest of the flight. There needs to be a better way for Emirates to identify which passengers are willing to be moved to accommodate their oversale situations rather than assuming that their most frequent flyers are willing/able to accept upgrades every single time.
Thoughts? Comments? Abuse?