We were on the first flight, but I missed virtually all of the pre-departure drum ceremony and speeches as I had to sort out a seat assignment snafu. It seems that our preassigned seats from several months ago had become randomized, and we were no longer seated together even in the same area.

This required spending considerable time sorting this out at SFO, causing us to miss out on the RCC and missing the predeparture ceremonies-- which was one of the reasons that I wanted to be on the first flight.

Worse, when in flight we spoke with one of the upper management folk who escorted this first flight to express our annoyance at this snafu and subsequent missing of the ceremonies, his reply--rather than soothing--actually annoyed us even more.

He essentially wasted our time as he spent a long time explaining that he could do very little for us. Unlike a recent encounter with a Skywest gate agent at BNA who proudly told me that he was "empowered" to help out customers when things went wrong, this higher level management person expressed the opposite--a lack of power to help out. He instead defered all decisions to the Purser, a person who was also not customer focused. I pointed out to the higher level management person that the Purser ultimately reported to him, which he agreed was the case. It seems to me that both the purser and upper level management employee could learn a lot from the can do attitude of the BNA Skywest gate agent.

Anyhow, a first flight certificate (individually signed by the Captain) was distributed in flight, and upon arrival, a brochure of Nagoya attractions was handed out on the jetway as we set foot into the fabulous new Centrair Airport.