Originally Posted by escape4

No. If the father had asked the SD if his son could come up to J and the answer was yes, then fine. AC is a business and they are free to do what they think is best. Then all passengers will behave accordingly once we know that AC will allow it, sometimes, based on their judgment. If you want a guaranteed J seat you pay for it, and if not you can buy in Y and ask and take a chance the answer will be no.

The problem is that the father did it without asking.

If I go to a restaurant and I need to pay a surcharge to get the salad buffet, and let's say I pay and eat the salad. Another customer next to me does not pay, but asks the restaurant owner if he can have something from the buffet and the answer is yes, then who am I to complain? Perhaps there are several circumstances leading to the owner's decision that I am not even aware of. But if the chap next to me goes to the buffet and starts eating without permission, that is something else.

I like Adam Smith's analogy is sneaking into a movie theater to watch a film without paying, even if the film has started already. No harm done because the seat was not occupied, right? I am sorry, but in my book that is not right. Of course if you ask staff if you can go in for free because the film has already started and they let you in, then fine.

Not completely related, but I remember one time I was on a short flight and unusually the aircraft had the lie flat beds in J and more than 75% of J seats were empty. We were delayed at the gate and expected to have to stay there for at least one hour due to bad weather at destination with all flights grounded. We were still on the ground and expected to remain there for quite a while, so I asked the SD if I could pay cash to upgrade to J, or use eupgrade credits to upgrade. I just did not want to sit in Y for a few hours at the gate waiting for departure. The SD explained to me that it was unfortunately not possible. Fine. Different situation, different flight, different staff, different passengers, etc, but if someone cannot upgrade on board while stuck at the gate despite offering to pay cash for a J seat, but someone can self-upgrade without permission mid flight? It's easy to see the issue here. As I said, if AC allowed self-upgrading without permission but refusing my offer to pay cash for an upgrade, they are free to manage their business this way, but then as a customer I would be free to fly with another airline if that was the case.