kryten22uk

I just checked and I've got back the seats I wanted. Yay, arent BA lovely! I never doubted them for a minute!

bealine

Just for the record, absolutely NO member of BA staff would move passengers' seats in order to reseat "Champagne Charlies" or other members of staff! It is expressly forbidden under the rules of staff travel and the penalties for transgression can be severe!

However:

1. Exit Row and seats requiring Able Bodied Persons are likely to be given to airline staff in preference because of the fact that they are already trained in evacuation procedures and can be relied upon to assist the operating crew should an incident arise! Perfectly understandable really, but still causes fits of jealousy and pique!

2. Flying Crew Rest Seats - It sometimes happens, for a variety of reasons, that the seats designated for the Flying Crew (Captain and First Officer) to enjoy a brief respite during a long-haul flight are open for on-line reservation. These particular seats are designated as "Crew Rest" (and not any other seats) for a variety of reasons, not least because the crew may need to find him/her quickly in the event of an incident.

3. "Operational Reasons" usually means an aircraft change or cabin divider change. If at all possible, we try to keep as close to the seats you originally had as possible, BUT time does not always allow us that luxury! In those circs, we ask you please to be understanding (as most of you are!!!)

Please remember not to rant and rave about a seat change until you have heard the full story. I always remember a Gold Card Holder throwing an epic wobbler at the gate when told his seat had been changed and he demanded to be put back in 26A. "It's an Exit Seat, an Exit Seat!!!" he kept burbling.

"Okay sir, as you want it so much, we'll put you back in 26A. We'll just have to give that Club World Seat to someone else then!"

I have never seen so much humble pie eaten in all my life!!!

aristoph

Still can't see any reason why we were moved from 3A and 3C to 3 E & F in a 737 config. Only 3A was blocked after the move - can't be trim. Not an exit row. Must be a champagne charlie!

AJLondon

^

Swiss Tony

This might well be in "the rules" but again it doesn't explain in any way, shape or form why kryten22 lost his seats. 14EF are on every 747 in the fleet - i'm just pleased for him (and his family) that they got the seats back!

Smirnoff

It is a well known fact that you cannot OLCI if you have a kid in the booking. Supposedly this is to ensure that you don't OLCI yourself throughout the cabin putting your kids next to strangers (why would you want to do that?).

Just a further example that the system does not work, because by not OLCI-ing, the airport Seat Shifters more often than not move you around and split you up. I am beginiing to get really p***ed off about this.

Had seats 3ABD and 4AB pre-assigned in a single booking for 10 months on a 3-class 777 to TPA. Couldn't OLCI. Forbidden by BA because kids in the booking. Get to FIRST check-in at LGW and the guys says the seats have changed. Its now 2 on the AB side, 2 on the JK side and 1 in the middle. I say this is unacceptable and the guy gives me one excuse after another.

First of all, he says its a equipment change. Utter garbage I respond.

The he says 4B is broken so they moved that seat (and 2 others).

Then he says someone else has checked into that seat, and it's my fault for not checking in earlier. (What? Come to the airport at 6am, because BA won't let me OLCI??)

At the First lounge I explain politely the issue, pointing out that I have purchased five revenue (not award) tickets, and have been treated pretty shoddily. 10 minutes later, a call to come to the front desk. The guy from Special Services was called and moved people around to get us together again. Apparently his reason for it happening is that 4B became a crew rest seat on that flight, and it should not have been assigned to me in the first place.

My point is that this shouldn't keep happening. And having been split up because of a BA cock-up, the First check-in should have fixed it, moving people if necessary, rather than saying it is my fault for arriving too late (almost 3 hours before flight!?).

Also, I shouldn't have to hear 3 separate lies/excuses for why they have done this.

Interestingly, a week later we took a CO domestic flight, and OLCI was the easiest thing in the world. Firstly, it allowed us to check us all in together from the same booking, instead of doing each passenger individually. Secondly it had no problem OLCI-ing kids. Thirdly if you can't PYOBP, it faxes them to you. Great service. BA could learn a thing or 2 from how other airlines so this.

virtualtroy

Just an observation: whenever I get moved around it's always for flights from or to LGW, never LHR. Customer services couldn't be more disinterested in investigating if they tried...

yyzlhr

Has anyone been the instigator of a seat shift--- For exaple you want 26A and it is already gone on the seat chart-- have you called BAEC and requested a specific seat?

carparkno1

Erm, I may well be the undisputed king of sheat shifting in economy lol.

Every time I fly long haul with BA I call ahead and put in a request for an exit seat. Every time I get to LHR, they can't help me because I am not BAEC. However, they take one look at my beanpole height (Peter Crouch with black hair basically) and usually get me a row on its own or on occasion an upgrade to WT+ or once to CW!!! I think they pity us lanky b******s!!!

I'm off to YYZ on the 15th, I'll tell you if I get any joy this time too! (probably just cursed my chances!).

Smirnoff

It's not a s/h or a Y-class problem. It's groups of pre-assigned seats (for family groups) in J on l/h routes, where the seats get moved around after seating moves to airport control.

Moomba

My CE flight is still 5 weeks away.

I went into MMB today to see if row 1 has opened up for us lesser gods holding silver cards.

It hasn't - but what I did notice was that someone had changed my 2A to 3F.

What gives? Why?

What was strange though was that seat 2A was showing as available so I nabbed it back again

Am I going to have to go into MMB every day to check all my bookings because BA like to play musical chairs?

aristoph

Not every day but maybe every second day! Unfortunately they are continually increasing or shrinking the CE cabin and shifting people to DEF when there are perfectly good AC seats still available.

Moomba

It is odd though as nothing else changed as far as I could tell from MMB.

The curtain was the same place (only 3 rows).

As far as I can remember there were no other seats assigned either. Just the move from 2A to 3F for me.

DYKWIA

Why do I always read the title of this thread as 'BA Shirt Lifters' ????????

serfty

I am travelling on a BA flight DXB-LHR on a 747 in March. This was booked back in August and from FT advice used MMB to get 14A preallocated. (My preference is for downstairs).

Last Friday I was checking my booking and noticed it was showing 13A.

After gathering my thoughts and doing a closer inspection; 14A was still free. However 14B was now allocated where previously it had not been.

Not wanting to risk being trapped against a window, I set about reselecting 14A but changed my mind halfway through and chose 14K instead.

AFAIK There has been no change of aircraft type of configuration in this time. Also, loads for this flight are still light.

Is this the work of this mysterious BA Seat Shifter or might there be a more logical reason?

^ (Thanks to moomba for pointing out this thread; originally posted on oneWORLD forum)