salut0

Our flight yesterday from LHR-JFK was otherwise pleasant. I was sitting in 28D in WT with an empty E seat to my right next to me and to the right in F a boy of about 10 and then his mother in G. They had probably traveled a long way and were quite tired and fell asleep soon after the plane took off. Eventually (a few hours later) the boy decided to lie down with his head in his mother’s lap stretching out his legs across the two remaining seats (E and F) between her and me to her left. One of his shoes was off and the other was still on.

I have often stretched out when I am in a middle block of multiple seats and nobody else is there or only other family members are there. I did this twice recently across three seats on AY when traveling on my own from AGP-HEL at night and it was quite successful.

The problem here was that the boy’s foot,
complete with shoe, ended up on the armrest between D and E. At one point it actually protruded into my space in the D seat and stuck straight up towards my face.

I was loth to tap or try to wake the boy and too far from being able to tell his mother. Luckily a crew member was walking past and I asked him to see if he could move the passenger’s leg and the offending trainer which he did, but then it came back again later extending over the armrest with the shoe sticking up straight again. At that point I decided to push the foot back towards him but he really was quite fast asleep so it didn’t really work and for the remaining half hour or so I sat with the shoe on or just to the right of the armrest.

This wasn’t for the majority of the flight. The E seat was already blocked when I booked 28D which was one reason why I chose 28D. As you can see from the EF seatmap it was a pretty full but not entirely full flight.

For kicks (pun intended?) this was actually my first flight after reaching Gold and (how ironic!) I had particularly been looking forward to the neighboring seat blocking benefit in WT!

What would you have done? Would you mention this to BA after the fact?



Leg and shoe position after it was nudged to the right. On two occasions, the leg was perpendicular to the armrest with the toe of the shoe pointing straight upwards towards my face

Mixbury

What exactly would you like from BA?

MFCC

What would you like BA to do about it? 🤔

Schwann

Popcorn at the ready and cross check.

ringingup

At least it wasn’t a bear foot.

skipness1E

Wake him up and point out the issue.
At the time.

noFODplease

..mention it to BA?! To what end?

You were too polite or kind or cautious to wake him up so he would move his legs. This could be viewed as commendable given you say they looked exhausted and he was young - but I’m afraid as you decided to put up with it at the time rather than wake him and solve the situation yourself, that is entirely the end of the matter.

BA has absolutely nothing to do with this outcome.

Congratulations on reaching Gold!

salut0

Had he been an adult, I would have had no compunction doing so. Don’t you think there’s a difference here if the person is a child, rather than an adult?

noFODplease

Yes but you could wake his mother instead.

noFODplease

I suspect you will get some piling on for this thread OP but I think I’ll try and sum up why in advance: If you make a personal choice not to take action on a mild, short lived and easily remedied inconvenience, it comes across as very odd to expect BA to remedy it or otherwise somehow soothe you after the fact. You may as well contact the brand of shoe he was wearing too, after all it was their product in your face.

In answer to your ‘what would you have done’ question, if it was bothering me I would have had no compunction in waking up one or both, to be friendly and apologetic, but ensuring I got my armrest and own comfort back. It wouldn’t occur to me to involve the airline and would have probably been over in 10 seconds, to be forgotten by all involved forever.

SSF556

No.

danmushman

I'd strongly advise against touching a child.... an adult a different story. Waking up the mother was probably the way to go.

Fatdickie

It's a reasonably long flight

Untie the laces and move the leg slightly towards the vacant seat head rest, re-tie them , keeping the offending leg and trainer suspended out of the way 😉

crazy8534

These situations can be a bit tricky and definitely worth considering that there was probably no intention to invade your space, just an unfortunate consequence of him being unconscious.
With all that taken into account, I think the prudent and reasonable course of action would have been to saw his foot off with cutlery from the meal service and then give the blood-soaked limb to his mum for safe-keeping until they land.

corporate-wage-slave

So you were lucky to get a Theoretical Seating block, but a bit unlucky with the kid. This was on BA113, and that wasn't so full, I suspect on 175 you may have been upgraded a cabin.

Part of me says this is economy, it is the realms of what happens. At least the kid was asleep, there are worse outcomes, and the shoe was not massively encroaching. It's the sort of reason why WTP would be better if you are space conscious, the seat design and layout would not allow this.

On the other hand you can't presume people can read your mind, so at a certain point, particularly if it stops you accessing plugs or IFE, you would need to have a very gentle and apologetic word with mum, who probably has no idea and can't see what you are seeing. The kid would probably be able to scrunch up some other way and would soon by back in the Land of Nod.