Yemona

I am 6f4 and ahem wideshouldered and often get asked by FA’s to move to the window exit row seats as they require to be occupied.

Also, I sometimes approach the flight attendant closest to the exit row at boarding and ask if I can move there once boarding is completed and if they remain empty, timing is crucial.

If I board last and see that they are empty, I occupy them directly after boarding, without any issues so far. My allocated seat remains empty which sometimes may be a blessing for the passengers I would have been sitting next to (more space for them).

richarddd

Where does it say Y pax can't move themselves to premium economy, MCE, J or F?

fotographer

what I think is that, ever since all the airlines started this trend of charging for seats, almost now thru out the whole plane, what before , in terms of seat selection and moving around after the doors were closed has been lookeddown at by those who paid $$ to select their seat.

I can understand, that has a customer that had paid in advance to select their seat, having
some other passenger take a seat in that section, that passenger would feel jilted.

However, now with all the airlines, finding new way to charge passengers fees, beyond the ticket price.. things are not going to change.

airlines are making a lot of money in extra fees... good for them.. bad for the customers.

Mulder00

OP paid for a guaranteed exit row seat and got it. The payment is to guarantee that specific seat, not for occupancy of the seat. (You could still get the same seat without paying for it, probably if the flight was a bit more full).

The other passengers also got what they paid for - they had no guarantee that they could occupy those seats. In this instance they were lucky, but if the seats were occupied then they wouldn't be able to sit there.

This happens all the time on BA for example - without status, you can pay for specific seats, but you could equally just wait and possibly still get those exact same seats without paying for them. It's just a case of whether you want to be 100% sure of getting those seats.

travelinterpreters

Just saw the same thing happen on a flight this week. Guy tried to poach the exit row seat, FA comes through with the electronic manifest and asks him to move to his assigned seat as the other passengers had paid to sit in that row. The guy starts yelling back at the FA who turns and walks away. Guy thinks he has "won". Purser returns and the guy finally moves. It was nice to see it finally happen.

HGH

I've seen it both ways. Once a guy tried to move up to an empty row on a CRJ and the FA had none of that business.

On another flight, the middle seat in my row was empty, and a large gentleman was headed towards it. The FA said, let's do better than that and put him in the empty exit row. He got a much better seat than he paid for and I had an empty seat next to me.

I don't see how this is any different that anything with dynamic pricing. When you buy early to guarantee you get what you want, there is always the chance someone else will get the same thing at a lower price if it is still available: airplane tickets, concert tickets, cars, clothes, etc.

FAA1996

I agree that the poachers should not be allowed to take the seats they didn't pay for. However, I think it's the airline's loss and their choice to enforce or not. As a fellow passenger I try not to get involved with others unless it really affects me.

UKtravelbear

enforcement is varialble

I have friends who are CC on non US airlines and they do enfoce the exit row / extra leg room seats and if someone does move into them they are pretty quick at telling them to move or to take their credit card as payment.

But if the CC moves passengers into those seats then you have no complaint and it's quite possible this happened to the OP which is why the crew apparently "didn't care"

donotblink

I will say it’s kind of a double whammy for non elite passengers. Most of the seats in the front thought the middle are MCE or Preferred seats which must be paid for, but they don’t just have that fee, they’re also required to pay the additional fare difference over basic economy.

MSPeconomist

Sorry, but no sympathy. They choose to buy basic economy tickets. These are the associated rules.

MiamiAirport Formerly NY George

Allowing paxs to self upgrade into MCE defeats the purpose of selling MCE seats. No different if someone self upgrades from Y to J.

gateH15

First 6 rows of couch on a321T are MCE seats. If someone who is already sitting there moved to an exit row they don’t need to pay for it since they are already in MCE or have elite status. I doubt passengers from the last row could see that exit row is unoccupied and move there.

Herb687

The handheld devices used by UA FAs to sell drinks and snacks also accommodate onboard paid upgrades to E+.

Why?
At least twice this year I have had entire MCE/E+ rows to myself.
Empty seat next to me in F as well.

enviroian

I can’t remember any flight in the past year where there was any empty bulkhead seat or F seat.

ryan182

End of the day the OP got what they paid for, a confirmed seat with more legroom. There's a reasonable argument that its in AAs financial benefit to not allow people to move themselves to these seats without payment unless its due to operational needs, ie standby/BE/unassigned seats who get lucky and end up there, not only so they can monetize these seats but also to avoid people such as the OP feeling they paid for something they could have got for free. On the other hand those pax rolled the dice and got lucky, not just in the seat being open (which probably isn't frequent) but also in the lack of enforcement. It very well might be that the majority of people who know they need/want the extra legroom will still pay to get those seats rather gamble that not only will an MCE/Exit seat be open but also that the FAs wont move them back. From the crews perspective I'm guessing this was more conflict avoidance and the comparison to a self-upgrade to F (or J on this flight) is very much different than moving to a seat with a few extra inches of legroom, doesn't make it right that pax took those seats if they weren't eligible for them but the comparison to J/F upgrades is apples:bowling balls.