What happened on my red-eye SFO-JFK last night
Sep 13, 2013, 11:02 am
#1
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What happened on my red-eye SFO-JFK last night
First time signing up for an account and posting on here. The preferential treatment of my seatmate last night prompted me to want to post this to get some insight around the situation.
Flew the late red-eye #2340 SFO-JFK last night on a 75E with the BE product. I was seated in 18E in the EC section and thought until the door was about to close that I might have the seat next to me (18D) open. Just as the door was about to close the passenger with that seat assignment boarded. Two flight attendants were standing in front of their seat near the mini-galley that's right there and the passenger barked at the flight attendant with his back to him "EXCUSE ME." The flight attendant turned around with a blank look on his face as though the passenger had asked 5x already. It was odd. However, it was a late flight so I thought maybe he was just tired and had a long day. Due to being late to board, the overhead bin space was full and the flight attendant offered to assist the passenger and put their backpack over row 4 in BE (more about this later).
After we took off, the "Flight Leader" or whatever DL calls their Purser came back to the passenger, knelt down and started whispering something to him. All I could hear out of the conversation was "pizza." The FL (flight leader) leaves and comes back and gives the passenger a pair of Bose headphones and what looked to be an amenity kit with the brand Tumi written on the black box. He then left and came back with a tray with a personal pizza on it and some wine. Nobody else in EC was given any extra attention, let alone any type of BE offerings, yet this passenger was. I assumed at this point one of two things happened:
1). He was involuntarily downgraded out of BE and they were doing what they could for service recovery? But I pretty much eliminated that theory simply due to the fact that I booked this ticket weeks ago and that particular EC seat was already booked (not blocked, I looked on EF). So I assumed this passenger was the initial owner of the seat.
2). We just had a really good FL whom maybe recognized this passenger from previous JFK transcons and wanted to go the extra mile?
Back to the backpack over row 4. Each time the passenger wanted something out of their backpack, they summoned a flight attendant and requested they get the black backpack out of the overhead and bring it to them. Now this really irked me. First off, we were sitting no more than 2 feet from that bin...who was this passenger that they couldn't bother to get this themselves? I could clearly see 50% of the BE cabin from my seat and not once did I see any flight attendants fetching personal items out of the overheads for any of those passengers.
I'm just curious if anyone has seen this happen also or has any insight as to why this passenger got such special treatment?
Flew the late red-eye #2340 SFO-JFK last night on a 75E with the BE product. I was seated in 18E in the EC section and thought until the door was about to close that I might have the seat next to me (18D) open. Just as the door was about to close the passenger with that seat assignment boarded. Two flight attendants were standing in front of their seat near the mini-galley that's right there and the passenger barked at the flight attendant with his back to him "EXCUSE ME." The flight attendant turned around with a blank look on his face as though the passenger had asked 5x already. It was odd. However, it was a late flight so I thought maybe he was just tired and had a long day. Due to being late to board, the overhead bin space was full and the flight attendant offered to assist the passenger and put their backpack over row 4 in BE (more about this later).
After we took off, the "Flight Leader" or whatever DL calls their Purser came back to the passenger, knelt down and started whispering something to him. All I could hear out of the conversation was "pizza." The FL (flight leader) leaves and comes back and gives the passenger a pair of Bose headphones and what looked to be an amenity kit with the brand Tumi written on the black box. He then left and came back with a tray with a personal pizza on it and some wine. Nobody else in EC was given any extra attention, let alone any type of BE offerings, yet this passenger was. I assumed at this point one of two things happened:
1). He was involuntarily downgraded out of BE and they were doing what they could for service recovery? But I pretty much eliminated that theory simply due to the fact that I booked this ticket weeks ago and that particular EC seat was already booked (not blocked, I looked on EF). So I assumed this passenger was the initial owner of the seat.
2). We just had a really good FL whom maybe recognized this passenger from previous JFK transcons and wanted to go the extra mile?
Back to the backpack over row 4. Each time the passenger wanted something out of their backpack, they summoned a flight attendant and requested they get the black backpack out of the overhead and bring it to them. Now this really irked me. First off, we were sitting no more than 2 feet from that bin...who was this passenger that they couldn't bother to get this themselves? I could clearly see 50% of the BE cabin from my seat and not once did I see any flight attendants fetching personal items out of the overheads for any of those passengers.
I'm just curious if anyone has seen this happen also or has any insight as to why this passenger got such special treatment?
Sep 13, 2013, 11:13 am
#2
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Can't speak to other stuff, but they sometimes make a big deal of Y passengers going into the F/J cabin, so I could see them fetching for him.
And there is no way to be sure he was the one who had booked the seat next to you. It's possible the original 18D was upgraded into the latecomers BE seat and when the latecomer finally showed up, they gave him the (now) empty 18D.
And there is no way to be sure he was the one who had booked the seat next to you. It's possible the original 18D was upgraded into the latecomers BE seat and when the latecomer finally showed up, they gave him the (now) empty 18D.
Sep 13, 2013, 11:21 am
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Can't speak to other stuff, but they sometimes make a big deal of Y passengers going into the F/J cabin, so I could see them fetching for him.
And there is no way to be sure he was the one who had booked the seat next to you. It's possible the original 18D was upgraded into the latecomers BE seat and when the latecomer finally showed up, they gave him the (now) empty 18D.
And there is no way to be sure he was the one who had booked the seat next to you. It's possible the original 18D was upgraded into the latecomers BE seat and when the latecomer finally showed up, they gave him the (now) empty 18D.
Sep 13, 2013, 2:25 pm
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Sep 13, 2013, 2:37 pm
#12
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Sep 13, 2013, 3:31 pm
#14
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Probably an involuntary downgrade of a high status passenger.
