Originally Posted by
tom139
Flew from LHR-SFO recently in a First to be told at the boarding gate that my seat was broken and that I would 'have to move'. Now, these things happen, but is the boarding gate really the most appropriate time - could they not have told us earlier?
They probably worked to fix the seat till they ran out of time.
So, I do think the boarding gate was the most appropriate time. It would have been silly to mess about by telling you earlier that you'd be moved, and then end up not needing to because they managed to fix it.
Some people would profusely complain about that, so I'd say there is no way of keeping everyone happy all the time in this situation.
It was said in such a dismissive tone like it was the norm.
The tone is unfortunate (assuming it was indeed dismissive - sometimes when we hear what we do not want to hear, the tone can sound worse to us than it does to bystanders, for instance) but it is I guess factual - if it's broken, you're not to sit there, although it may be allocated to a staff member depending on the degree of brokenness.
Onboard the crew moved us around but we couldn't sit together and ended up in Row 5 which was so noisy in comparison to our front row seats.
Are we eligible for compensation?
I believe not, because you travelled in the same cabin booked, you were allocated a fully functional seat, and seat assignments aren't guaranteed.