Self-upgrading Okay for Kids?
 

Onboard AC757 YYZ-SFO right now.

There are a few unoccupied seats in J today. I moved from 2C to 2D.

After lunch service, 2A went to the back and brought his (I presume) son (ca. 5-6 years old) up to the front. The son has been here for ~10 minutes now and the SD has definitely seen him. A bit surprised she seems to be condoning this as she was quite strict about enforcing J lavatory usage by Y passengers earlier.

I imagine cow (and others) would not be pleased. ;)

Update: SD came by, spoke to 2A (who acted a bit surprised that this would not be okay), and the son is now gone.

Well done.

*applause*

I'm sure it was hard for the SD but I like it when the rules are enforced

One wonders what possible effect a well-behaved child would have on the inner sanctum of AC's opulent J. I understand the opposition to an adult companion moving forward, but to a 6yr old child?

There's rules, and there should also be latitude for discretionary judgements.

If the father had wanted the son to sit in FC/business class, he should have purchased a FC/business class ticket for the kid.

And then there's "why in the hell does this kid deserve special treatment compared to any other kids?"

Pops in J if he was an SE can nominate him and burn his E-ups. Or Pay for an upgrade. Or buy the kid paid J.

If he's too cheap to do so, his own issue. Kick him to the back like the rest of the self upgrading pleebs.

Travelling once in Premium Rouge, it was half full and woman across the aisle from the empty seat next to me wanted her preteen son to be able to come up to one of the empty J seats. SD acquiesced but made it clear that there would be no meal and no, he could not sit next to me. The SD knew I knew this was theoretically not allowed, but at the time I gave him credit for keeping a couple of slightly inebriated passengers under control while making sure I was not inconvenienced.

How do you know the child was well-behaved? ;)

Why?
Because self-upgrading is stealing.
It matters not if the person doing it is 2 or 92. if they did not pay for the seat in the premium cabins, they don't get to sit there for free.

let the kid sit in business class, stop being so mean! :) :) :)

I presume your message is directed to the parents, and implies that you believe the parents should buy the poor kid a business class ticket rather than teaching her to steal.

If so, then I whole-heartedly agree.

I wrote "a" well-behaved child, not "the" well behaved child.

No. A 6 year old boy sitting next to his father at his father's request is not stealing anything.

Most FlyerTalkers operate under Black vs White. Life is not like that.

The father likely didn't want his kid to have a business class ticket; he likely wanted his son to sit beside him. He (presumably deliberately) waited until after the meal service, so this kid is not receiving any "special treatment" except being able to sit beside Dad, which many of you are quite keen to advocate against, because, well, harrumph, why the heck should he?!?!?

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote "I fly because it releases my mind from the tyranny of petty things". Evidently, few here fly for the same reason.

But this isn't life. This is social media. Nuance takes too long.:(

Swapping is one thing.... This is just purr stealing

Respectfully disagree.

Air Canada makes it perfectly clear to all of us who fly in whichever cabins, that there is a cost associated with the product and service we purchase.

Air Canada makes it clear that if we want to sit in Business Class, we need to buy a business class ticket with cash, or use the currency of upgrade credits to do so.

If I buy a ticket to sit in a premium cabin, I do not want someone else who feels entitled, to sit there without having paid. I would not do it, some others here would not do it and I will not show teary-eyed sympathy because the person is 2 or 6.

In my last 12 AC TPACs and my last 12 AC transcons, the Business Cabin has had anywhere from 2 to 6 children under the age of 10. They - their parents - paid for their seats. None of them appeared in the cabin after the flight had boarded / closed doors/ reached altitude. I think those kids are really lucky to have parents who are paying for such luxuries - and make no mistake - business class across the Pacific is a luxury.

We live in a universe heavily populated by the self-entitled.

I think Air Canada would not be amused if their employees were allowing theft in the form of self-upgrading.

In another thread on the same topic, I had suggested that AC cabin crew use those hand-held devices meant for BoB purchases and tell the self-upgrading pax that they will be happy to accept payment on the spot for their upgraded seat.

An airline seat is a perishable thing; once the flight closes, the seller, ie the airline, loses any ability to sell unoccupied seats. Anyone who uses an unoccupied seat, whether to sit in, to place a bag on, or whatever, is certainly not stealing.

If this was akin to theft, then first-class pax who have an empty, adjacent seat turned into their bed while they sit/work/eat in their originally-assigned seat are thieves, too.

How do we know they paid for their seats? How do we know what anybody paid? Did they part with cash, fly on points, get comped, bid an upgrade, gifted a pass, work for the company or one of a dozen other means of sitting up front? More importantly, how does the presence of a freeloading first-grader in any way detract from our "luxury experience"?

My opinion in this case (not talking about hypothetical TPACs) is not based upon rigid Policy & Procedure. It's rooted in compassion, which I admit, isn't defined within the T&C of most airline travel agreements.

Today we allow someone's child, tomorrow someone will bring his/her parent, husband/wife, GF/BF, friend, and then eventually, comfort HH.

​​​​​​​Many rules doesn't make sense, but ignoring these rules isn't the way to fix it.

I was hoping people didn't introduce the "slippery slope" or "thin edge of the wedge" argument, because we aren't discussing bringing adults - or indeed animals - into the front cabin. Let's keep this within the scope of the debate.

(duplicate)

Everyone pays for their seats with a form of currency - money, money plus upgrades or miles.

Today it is one "free-loading first-grader", tomorrow it's grandma, 3 more kids, a spouse whose upgrade did not clear, and other pax who see that they can just move up when the doors close.


This is my view and I don't expect anyone to agree with me. But I expect that if you want to sit in J, you pay for J.

If this child should be allowed up front as self upgrading, then definitely as a white, able bodied, middle aged male, I am 110% entitled to sit up front for free.... along with my Emotional Support Emu.

Pay for the darn seat or get to the back of the bus like everyone else.

See above few posts about this not being the debate under discussion.

As for 'everyone pays for their seats', I have paid for a Y seat and been comp upgraded into TATL J on 4-5 occasions over the years. What did I pay, other than the economy fare? Should I have been relegated to the back, despite having been invited by Air Canada?

I disagree.

This is why AC chose to stop giving out complementary upgrades just because there was space available in J. To coin a phrase, doing so would cheapen the value of those business seats.

If you know there's a reasonable chance that AC will comp your kid up into business class, then there's very little motivation for you to pay for a business class seat for her. By enforcing the rules, AC is also providing very clear motivation to parents who want their children to sit in business class - they must pay for business class.

Clearly a lot of commentators view this as within the scope of the debate. For some, it's a key reason why AC has such rules and why such rules should be enforced.

That's a false equivalency.

I could choose to give my money (or property or services) to anyone. The fact that I might do so one time, does not give them permission to take it from me without my permission in the future.

I assume the child was seated with another adult in the Y cabin. I don't understand why he did not remain there.
The father could have swapped with the other adult if he really wanted to be with his son.

They may well do, but the original post contained the question about one child. If we want to discuss some of the confusing derivatives on offer from other members, perhaps that should occur in a separate thread. But it's a bit strange to disagree with my opinion about one 6 year old boy by advocating against spouses, grandma and emotional support hedgehogs.

Yup, I pay for J for our little one to sit with us all the time and would not be impressed if this was let slide...

I presume the child was being accompanied (by the mother?) back in economy.

If Dad wanted to sit beside his child, there's a very simple answer; put Mom in the business class seat, and Dad gets to sit beside the child in Y. Simple, and completely within the rules.

Assumptions are unhelpful.

By following this suggestion, all we've accomplished is changing the title of this thread.

I suspect this underlies the real reason for peoples' opposition: the fact that others are receiving a perceived benefit, despite the net effect on themselves being nil.

I agree with this.

I'm not talking about rules, and I'm not talking about the expectation of an upgrade -- everyone should pay to sit in the seat they want to sit in, regardless of which cabin that seat happens to be in. Heck, I'm not even talking about the kid who went to sit up front with his dad. I think you missed the point of my post.

All I'm saying is that the use of an empty seat hardly constitutes "stealing." Stealing involves taking something of value from somebody, and as AC has absolutely no method of monetizing that empty seat, you're not damaging them in a dollars and cents kind of way. That's all.

You raise a fair point, but I wasn't suggesting I'd feel entitled to sit up front on a future flight. My point was that I paid nothing extra to sit up front, in reply to the statement that some form of currency must be exchanged for the privilege.

No, the example in the OP was one child.

This discussion understands that example but also extends the self-upgrading behaviour to those who may consider doing so in the future and for me, that is a key issue. I also think Air Canada does not have a clearly defined enforcement policy because based on posts on this forum, some cabin crew do not seem to want to enforce the rules or seem intimidated by pax who do what they want and thus the cabin crew choose to avoid confrontation.

OK.. I'll play. A 6 year old is fine.... How about a 17 year old (Still a "child" legally) No? OK...... Where is the line then? Kind of important to have one if 6 is OK and 17 isn't. So? A small 14 year old vs a big 10 year old?
The problem with "discretion" is that it leads to the "but they were allowed to bring their kid forward/ but he/she was allowed to do XXX" Inconsistency...which is one of the MAJOR complaints on FT..... and rightly so.

I'm more disturbed about the lesson that it is teaching the child. Not only did the father abandon him (and presumably whoever else was flying with him) in order to enjoy the comforts of J, but then he teaches the kid that it's ok to move up front if there are any empty seats. For those of you who use the "he's only a kid" argument, just remember that he won't be a kid forever. He will be an entitled teen in a few years and an entitled adult a few years after that.

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There is a distinction between wanting to sit in a more comfortable cabin versus wanting to sit beside Dad and/or following Dad's instructions.
How did hypothetical future flights enter the debate? Neither I nor the OP introduced the concept.

Does anybody here know AC's enforcement policy on cabin upgrades? Note, this is separate from the policy disallowing said upgrades. It seems to me there's a lot of assumptions being made on what cabin crew want to do, how they may feel, and how they choose to address those feelings.

So, can anybody advance an argument based upon the event in question, rather than on hypothetical events in the future?

As an aside, the bolded piece above is a fantastic example of twisting or inventing facts to fit a desired narrative.