Originally Posted by
BizFlyin
I'm not quite sure why it's so difficult to grasp, so let me boil it down about as simply as I can.
- There are, usually, one or more empty seats on a plane
- Instead of allowing these to fall randomly, the should be situated next to top status pax who happen to be in WT or WT+, with the reservation that it should not impact any other booking.
- This would allow BA to gain some benefit from an otherwise worthless item, an empty seat. The benefit would be making its status holding passengers more comfortable.
Now really, superfluous strawman pontification aside, what's the downside here?
The 'downside', as others have pointed out, is that if the top priority use of an empty seat is to place it next to a GCH, then couples and others travelling together could be forced to sit apart even though there were several 'seat pairs' available.
Thus, using an example of a single row in a plane in 3x3 configuration, if two GCHs pre-allocated themselves, say, 9C and 9D, then even if all other seats in the row were free, Mr and Mrs Deeplyinlove would be required to occupy 9A and F.
I think that all that SRG was suggesting, and if so I entirely agree with her, is that in the great scheme of things, forcing couples to sit apart like that would cause considerable distress, out of proportion to the legitimate benefit the suggested policy would confer on GCHs.