Having taken a few UK economy domestic flights in recent months, most were rather uneventful. My travel companion and I (both GGL) managed always to pre-book window and aisle exit row seats. The flights were functional and did the job of getting us to our destination as expected.

But we noticed the final middle seat at the exit rows occasionally was given to someone that at least one of the crew knew (likely a friend or colleague, from what we could tell from the camaraderie). The flights were mostly full.

When this happened, we also noticed that each time, a member of crew would come and offer that person a drink and snack not normally served in economy, and completely ignored us who had sandwiched the friend (we just got the usual economy staple of a bag of crisp and a bottle of water). It’s not something that we’re bothered about - after all it’s a short domestic flight, and we’re given what we’d expect according to the class of service that we’d paid for.

But it got us wondering after it’s happened a few times - is it acceptable protocol to prioritise the giving of exceptional service for a crew’s “friend” onboard (over and above the provisions of the prescribed class) instead of high status paying customers?