Well, I can't believe it. I am back here with a story that I never thought would have happened to me after all of my preparation.
I had asked for and been assigned aisle seats EWR-HKG (16 hours!) and HKG-EWR (not as bad, only 13 hours). It was bad enough not to be in first class (as I had erroneously assumed I would be, being new to CO, travel to Asia and so on - I do get upgraded going to Mexico but I guess they consider it part of the US practically, and only found out 2 days before the flight that no pay, no upgrade, OUCH)
I was in row 17, which is the second row of coach on the 777. There was a very large man in the middle seat - he said that he weighed 300 pounds - complaining vigorously that he was with his wife (seated in the bulkhead row ahead of us, also in the middle), that he had booked seats together, it was her birthday and so on, and that they didn't get the seats he had requested. It turned out that due to traffic problems they had arrived late ("within the hour") to the airport and apparently their seats were reassigned. The FAs were called in but the flight was full so there was not much that could be done. Apparently, due to the weather scare we had in NY last week, the Monday and Tuesday flights had been canceled so this flight, which was supposed to be fairly empty, was jam-packed.
I felt bad for him and could see that he would be very uncomfortable. He also said that he needed to stretch out since he would have heart palpitations if he could not get up ... to make a long story short, I offered to swap WITH HIS WIFE, since I felt that being in the middle wouldn't be as bad in a bulkhead as it would in my row. Well guess what! She did not want to move! She liked being able to stretch her legs out!! So ... I had to swap with him! He got my aisle and I got to sit in the middle, in coach, for 16 hours!
Both he and my neighbor to the left were very nice and interesting however. In the end I could not believe that I helped him, but they really appreciated it and thanked me. (The only thing was ... my one neighbor was very nice and did not use the armrest, but when he fell asleep, he turned his body so that his legs were coming into the middle seat and I tried to shift but found the big man leaning into me as well. His feet were actually under the seat in front of me and his arm took up the entire armrest ... since he was asleep, what could I do but snuggle up against him, wife or not!)
I figured it would not kill me to help them and I know that it would have been worse for him. I figured that someday someone would help me in a similar circumstance. Well I got my payback right away!
On the flight home I was really tired and looking forward to sleeping. The flight was said to be 80% full. I was in my aisle seat ... and a man came up and you could tell he was hoping that I was just a free-loader since he asked me what my assigned seat was. (DUhhhh .... THIS ONE!) He said that he was in the window and I said that I had been hoping the row would be empty since I really wanted to sleep. He said that he had been hoping for the same thing, so I said, "Well then you better run quick and find an empty row before someone else has the same idea ... " and he did! I got to have all three blankies and pillows that had been in the row, and fell asleep and when I woke up, it was 9 hours into the flight! I was so excited. But I still can't believe I swapped with this man.
Oh, it was interesting on the flight out that a man was stretched out across a row right away. Everyone was getting annoyed since others wanted to move from middle seats to aisles and when the FA was contacted, she said "he can't do that! I am going to wake him up as soon as the food carts come out ..." well it turned out that he had paid for all three seats since apparently he had to go right to work when he landed. He had posted all three boarding passes on the backs of the seats so that people wouldn't bother him.
But I got my row and didn't even have to pay for the extra seats!
[This message has been edited by CozumelJen (edited 03-12-2001).]