Originally Posted by g_leyser
This happened on a recent UA flight of mine: A well dressed (business casual) guy was one of the last to board and seeing empty seats in C on the 777 he took one. He took a comp. glass of water and the flight took off. About 30-40 mins. into the flight the FAs came around to take breakfast orders, realized he wasn't on the list, asked him to move, which he did calmly and without complaint. I was in row 19 (front of economy) and saw this entire thing transpire through the open curtain. Turns out his actual seat was next to mine and we started chatting. He said he tries it all the time and it works about 50/50. He was very proud of a LAX-SYD flight he pulled it off. "13 hours of free business class" he said. Half of me thought he was brave and why not go for it, but the other half of me thought its dishonest and a little too much. He was a very smart and nice guy and I chatted with him the entire flight. He looked like any other biz traveler (maybe thats why it worked) he even had a Wall Street Journal. My questions for all of you are: Ever seen (or done) anything similar? What do you think of someone like this? Could this be considered stealing and therefore illegal? Could it be considered a security breach? I would love to hear any FAs views if you're out there.
As a F/A, I routinely check our final report to make sure everything jives with the count in F/C. If it doesn't and I see who the culprit is, I ask to see thier boading pass, I then politely escort them to the correct seat in the main cabin. It is embarassing enough to them to be caught so I don't go on and on about it. But I think it is terrible that people would try to do this. Whether the rightful people in B/F have been upgraded on miles or someone has paid full fare tickets that is where they should be! 9 times out of 10, the person is a MAN that was not upgraded as he thought he should be and is accustomed to sitting in B/F on other flights. But I guarantee you, if they witnessed someone doimg this when they WERE sitting in B/F, they would not appreciate the intrusion. As far as security reasons, it makes me uneasy to know someone is trying to "put one over on us" just by being sneaky. Who knows what their reasons are for trying such a thing.