Originally Posted by
sfogate
The tipoff is that you were seated in 1E and that seat was needed for a flight crew member. This means that the flight attendant's jumpseat was broken and they were required to use 1E, as their jumpseat.
Maybe not. If the flight deck crew was doing a EWR-SJD-EWR turn and the block time sufficiently long, that seat may have been taken for the necessary relief pilot. Since the seat was occupied at all times, it sounds as though this was the case. There is no other situation that I can think of (barring an inop FA jumpseat that you mentioned) where a revenue passenger would be bumped to coach to accomodate a crew member.