UA 451, DEN-SAN, 752, Sept 19th (Monday)

I asked at the gate if they were oversold, and sadly they were not... just very full. Ugh. Probably no empty middle for me.

The part I hate about boarding: I'm sitting in 10C, which on a 752 is the
front-most E+ apart from the exit row seats in rows 8 and 9. On come all
these pax and I keep wondering whom I'll be sitting with. I am of
course praying for the empty middle, but odds are low because the plane is
checked-in nearly full. After about 80 pax board (the plane holds 182), a
portly but pleasant woman announces she is the owner of 10B. So the middle is taken, but at least she's nice enough. I immediately warn her, "the window is almost certainly to be claimed since the flight is nearly full." She says, "yes, I think it's my friend, but I didn't see her at the gate. She's
terrified to fly and she may have decided to drive to San Diego instead!"
We both chuckled. "Is she supposed to sit next to you?" I asked. "I don't
know," she said, "the company booked our tickets."

The owner of 10A showed up: he was a standby flyer.

Ok, so now the drama is over, right? We have a full row. After about 120 pax have boarded, the lady next to me sees her friend board (the door is just 2 meters in front of us). "Laura!" she calls. Laura does not look happy. In fact, she looks ashen. Instead of greeting her friend, she walks straight up
to me and asks me to switch seats with her.

Immediately all my FT reading comes pouring in. "Get an FA involved
immediately", was one piece of advice. I decided to at least talk to her.
"Where is your seat?" I asked. "I... I... don't know," she said, and handed
me her ticket jacket.

I opened it up and looked at the BP stub. 26E. 8 rows from the back; middle
seat, 31" of pain, 2 hours.

My first thought was to say, "I'm sorry but I really would rather not sit in
the back... I worked so hard to get this seat." Now that may be an
exaggeration ... "worked hard?" Not really, I just flew a lot on UA. And
I did (like a good FTer) check to ensure my seat was intact at least 10 times
in the past 2 months, including every day for the past three days. Now I was
being asked to give it up for 26E. 26E!

I thought about suggesting that she and her friend move to the back instead (more FT wisdom pumping through my head). Instead I just gave in.

"Ok," I said. "The karma had better be good on this one," I thought to myself.

Now, instead of heading to the back, I decided to hang out by the F lav. Two FAs were there, and neither was busy, so I hit one of them up: "Well, I had an E+ aisle, but a lady asked me to switch to a middle in the back because she's afraid to fly and wants to sit with her friend." "Oh," said the FA, "well, that's completely up to you if you want to switch."

At this time, Laura was breathing into an airsick bag. It seemed to be a
bit overboard... maybe an act to get my seat?? But she was sweating profusely and that's hard to do on demand... heck, if she could sweat on demand, she deserved the seat.

"Would it be all right with you if I just hung out up here until we finished
boarding... maybe an E+ seat will be available and I could snag it instead of
going to the back," I asked hopefully. The FA said he doubted there would
be one, "we're overbooked," he said, contradicting what the GA had told me minutes before.

Since he was greeting F pax, he went forward, so I decided to ooze over to
the purser who was standing at the door. I told her the same story, "hoping
maybe there will be an E+ seat." She said I was very nice for helping the
lady out, and she went into the jetway to call the GA. "Ok, you have 12F."

Here I am sitting in 12F with an empty middle. Karma! I think it's the only
empty middle in E+!

=========

For the last 20 mins of descent into SAN, Laura was crying and barfing into
a bag, on her clothes, on her friend. The FAs were bringing wet cloths from
the lav. It was a little bumpy, but no more than you'd expect going down through a few cloud layers (there were thunderstorms in the area earlier). I found myself hoping this was her final destination... for a LONG time.