NFH

They never tell you the real reason, which is probably the one I suspect above. The so-called "security checks" are implausible. Everyone goes through security and everyone has their passport checked at the gate (and often at bag drop too).

WorldLux

Without even looking into the actual contractual terms published by BA, I'm pretty sure that there will be a clause saying that OLCI cannot be guaranteed.

Again. There's no conspiracy going on. If this infuriates you to such a degree, then prebook seats. Infinitely worse are the airlines that take your paid seats or even change your seats after PYOBP/OLCI. The latter has happen to me a couple of times and the reason was very clear: Someone too lazy to do the OLCI nagged the check-in agent so long to get two seats next to each other that the CI agent'd move me to completely different row (often a middle seat) to accommodate said passenger).

PS: I'm somewhat surprised you haven't done any status match. AB Gold should have landed you on ruby/sapphire with another OW carrier. That in turn would have avoided the dilemma.

pt flyer

Sigh.... All I can say is that I am sorry for the customer service people who must deal with this today.

TabTraveller

I'm going to have a wild stab in the dark that you aren't a lawyer. Honestly, the attitude in your posts is unnecessarily confrontational and your misunderstanding of your statutory protections/rights as a consumer doesn't make you look smart. Quite the opposite. As others have said above, if precisely where you sit in the cabin matters to you then BA offers the ability to pay to ensure you have your desired seat. Your decision not to pay does not amount to BA's wrongdoing.

beachmouse

You've never been 'lucky' enough to draw the SSSS card for inbound flights to the USA then, I take it. That will screw up OLCI in many a case.

Globaliser

IANAE, but I would be extremely surprised if this were the case. I'd be faintly surprised if the ability to OLCI is a contractual term at all; I'd be more surprised if any OLCI failure is a breach of contract.

That thread may not be published by BA, but it is relevant. You have to look at all of this with a degree of real-world realism, not simply through the eyes of someone who believes that they have been wronged. If every OLCI failure (including the huge number reported in that thread) is a breach of contract (as you seem to suggest), then the substantial number of OLCI failures - some causing real hassle, inconvenience and occasionally expense - would render BA liable to a huge number of actions for breach of contract.

Yet there aren't any. I very much doubt that this is because you're the first person to have been clever enough to think of the possibility.If you think that this is all that security involves, then you clearly don't have a particularly detailed knowledge of all of the aspects of flying that would come under the heading of "security", including SSSS as beachmouse has just mentioned.I suspect that the underlying story here may be another instance of the common mismatch between the passenger's view and the airline's view of the passenger's importance to the airline, and the consequent fallout when something goes awry. A large proportion of the incidents in this thread stem from the same thing (and I notice from the search that I've just done that many airlines seem to suffer the same phenomenon). If the OP is a frequent BA passenger (and it's not clear whether or not that's the case), they will have seen a lot of "stuff" happening over the years. "Stuff" happens, including OLCI failures; sometimes one just has to get over it.

PUCCI GALORE

Ultimately, I simply do not understand why BA charge to select seats when people have paid fares like this. The fares are high enough without seat selection on top of that. Whilst I do sympathise with the OP as it causes nothing but trouble all round when this situation arises. I am not getting into the quai-legal side of all this as I am no expert.

We get this so often "will you swap with my whoever" - and the answer usually offends.

Sixth Freedom

So if N people need to check in and only N-1 seats are not blocked the passengers cannot proceed. Sounds like bad design!

Misco60

American Airlines is the worst for this. On almost every domestic flight I have ever taken with them, there has been a couple who have managed to bag gate upgrades to the First cabin but not in adjacent seats, who then ask - and expect - others to move to accommodate them. The choice of moving to a less-than-ideal seat or sitting next to a grumpy and resentful fellow passenger for 5 hours is not an appealing one.

On one recent flight the husband was sitting in row 1 next to a lady who wanted to remain in row 1 because she wanted to put her feet on the bulkhead, and the wife was next to me in row 3, and I didn't want to move to row 1 because of the lack of legroom... It was awkward.

Starship73

ThatT1Feeling

Yes I had this last week on a Transcon in F. I don't know if the particular passengers involved had got a gate upgrade, but I was in 1F and was asked to move by the customer to 4F so he could sit in the same row as his wife. I was a bit taken aback but did agree to move and in fact was pleased that I did because I made them both very grateful and got away from the galley noise. I also didn't want to be across the aisle from a resentful wife as you said! The seats were identical in this case though..

PUCCI GALORE

How right you are - and you now have given me the reason why this has been such a regular occurrence. That and changing seat maps on the 767 to HNL has been the other.

PUCCI GALORE

So what is to stop them blocking seats out as American do already for their Elites? You cannot book a Row 1 seat in CE until a certain time is reached unless you are Gold. I see no valid reason why they cannot do this in CW. The means that the occasional customer can choose to be together, assuming that there are two seats together, and the more desirably perceived seats (Window and Aisle?) are held for the Elites.

WorldLux

It's IMO much more customer friendly to have seat reservation fees rather than block the best seats in CW to Golds. The current system has two advantages:

• Seats are kept free for late reservations.
• It takes a single return in CW and two Y returns to get to Bronze, which will allow you to select seats for free at T-7
• Non-status passenger that really want specific seats can pay for them. That wouldn't be the case when the seats are blocked for elites

Globaliser

On at least some routes, the number of seats that you'd need to block to allow higher-tier members and full-fare passengers to continue to select the better seats would leave very little left in the cabin for those who currently have to pay. I imagine that with normal overbooking levels, BA would rapidly get to the point at which there would literally be nothing left to pick by those who currently have to pay, or else higher-tier members and full-fare passengers would be made to do without. And the problem becomes most critical at the point in the booking cycle at which the highest-yield travel is typically being booked - the couple of weeks before the date of the flight.

It was possible to see this more clearly in the immediately-preceding iteration of BA's seating policy in CW, when you could either pre-allocate for free (the same categories as can now) or you could not pre-allocate even if you were prepared to pay. Sometimes, the vast majority of CW seats were marked occupied by T-3d. Of course, that then leads to the period when there can be a lot of cancellations, freeing up seats for others. But with this, you can begin to understand that seat blocking isn't much of an answer to the problem.