Broken Flight Attendant Seat... You need to move to economy
 

This morning I flew on BA 830, a slightly delayed LHR-DUB. It was operated by an A321NEO and myself & my partner as BA Gold were in 1D/F.

Shortly before takeoff a flight attendant TOLD me I needed to move back to 10D as a flight attendant seat was broken and she needed to sit in my seat for takeoff and landing. Initially I asked why me versus 1C and she said it had to be 1D. As a NEO I then said I’d sit in 1E but she said they wasn’t allowed despite a couple sitting in 3EF. I wasn’t in the mood to argue so trudged back to row 10 and then back to 1 once the seatbelt went off

There were 9 rows of Club so on a 75 min hop they were obviously busy serving breakfast up front. The Capt announced 30 mins and they were only at row 5. By the time they finished and started to collect trays, I was told “just sit in 1E it’ll be fine”

Any comments???

Part of basic safety requirements worldwide, not just BA. Just takeoff and landing.

There is a designated backup seat on every commercial aircraft and on yours it was 1D. No discretion for the FA.

Only other alternative is to cancel the flight.

Sounds like a reasonable request to me.

I have had something similar, albeit when domestic flights were only Y. 1D is the selected seat as it can see the door, whereas 1C cannot. Or so that was the reason I was given.

One thing I've learnt since I've been on this board is that if a member of BA staff asks something, they're usually right and it's best to comply. The fact that you were allowed in 1E at landing is may point to the fact that you could have been allowed there for take off too but all in all it sounds like a minor inconvenience. Imagine on a full flight if they had the tables in the middle, they might have offloaded you!

Absolutely not throwing a tantrum, more just wanted to know the ins and outs

Or put the table away...

I might have offloaded myself and demanded EU261 downgrade compensation. On such a short flight being in Y for take off (and potentially landing) is quite a big proportion of overall flight time.

Well technically you couldn’t do both, as presumably on the next flight you’d be back in CE, and at best in an arguable position on delay compensation even if the band 1 time limit was breached,

In the circumstances, the OP did the perfectly sensible thing - I wouldn’t voluntarily delay myself for several hours for the sake of maybe 25 minutes in Y.

However, your point about the proportion of flight time is interesting and suggests the OP might qualify for downgrade reimbursement - although, again, this is going to be an extremely small amount of money,

I would personally therefore be inclined to reach out to customer service to see if a few thousand Avios were forthcoming for the inconvenience.

Outs.. 1D, 10D, 1D

Ins 10D, 1D, 1E

Those sounds more like ups and downs than ins and outs :D

It's happened to me but I got moved from 1C to 5C. Annoyingly, another passenger asked to move to 1C after take off and was allowed!

So can you or can’t you sit in 1E when the flight attendant needs 1D? Why for OP was it disallowed for takeoff but allowed for landing?

In that instance i would insist on him giving it back. That's BS

I'm guessing the broken attendant seat was reported at a very late stage just prior to boarding or even after boarding had commenced as otherwise I suspect you'd have received a red beep at the boarding gate for seat reassignment.

I don't know the precise loads on your flights but the NEO's are balance critical at the moment (operational requirement) with rows of seats blocked off at the back based upon loads at the front. I'm assuming Club was full otherwise you'd have been reassigned out of 1D upon boarding I'm certain. Adding another row of Club to accommodate you may well have jeopardised passengers sat towards the tail as it might have implicated additional rows to be blocked off in the back based on the Club loads at the front. Not sure what cargo and baggage was loaded aboard but there could have been implications here too for redistribution or taking stuff off - again causing delay.

For what it's worth, my money is on the broken crew seat being reported late, too late in the day for the dispatcher/CRM to reseat you/reconfigure the cabin without delaying the flight and the decision was made for you that it was quicker, easier and cheaper for everyone to simply ask you to move for the critical phases of flight.

I imagine however for the inbound DUB-LHR and subsequent rotations that 1D would be blocked off and any passenger already assigned there would find their seat assignments moved accordingly as there would be enough time to do so without impacting the on time performance of the operation.