I fixed yer typo.

;) :eek: :D

O/T

I think "Economist" is sufficient. :cool:

This is incorrect and has been since 2003. This was a domestic flight and the requirement of removing luggage when a passenger is off-loaded has not been in place since then.

Perhaps back to my first post Mr. 2A had two boarding passes, one with the upgrade and the other with the Y seat. Scans the Y boarding pass to get on the plane but only shows the 2A boarding pass on board. Just my speculation.

Hmm. This story is awkward to me, and on multiple levels. I agree with a previous poster that the title of this thread is very misleading (does the OP freelance for yahoonews or HuffPost.com? He sure knows how to make us click.)

I find it especially awkward that Mr. 2A would show a hard copy of his "you've been upgraded" email as proof of his seat assignment. It just doesn't work that way (or, at least it shouldn't). A passenger's proof of a seating assignment is their boarding pass. Period.

I also find it awkward that Mr. 2A "stood his ground" for the upgrade and the OP basically gave in (out of concern for delaying other passengers). Hmm. Anyone who flies out of DCA knows that the frequent flyer bunch there are like great white sharks. They go in for the spectacular kill. OP must have been frightened by Mr. 2A. And, that's understandable. Though, that the gate agents didn't pursue making this situation right raises a lot of red flags for me. Was Mr. 2A running a scam? If I take the OP's story for complete truth, then Mr. 2A bamboozled everyone. The gate agents should have busted him.

Alas, Mr. 2A won this round. Yes, the OP took the higher ground (a complete RARITY for the type A personalities running around in Washington, DC, and a moral victory that he can highlight on Judgement Day). But, he still ended up in coach. And, in DC that means we have to throw him some L's.

I have to wonder, was Mr. 2A a Lou Ferrigno type looking beast? A U.S. Senator or Representative? Incredibly hot and appealing? Physically disabled? What allowed Mr. 2A to keep his seat with so little supporting documentation? The world may never know.

I don't understand. Once a FA tells the guy "Sir, please take your seat in 11C", doesn't doing anything else go under "interfering with a flight crew" on the great book of the federal offenses ?

I guess I am not a high road kind of guy......I will take my assigned seat and be polite but firm about it. None of us were there so cant say for sure if the person ever had the seat assigned and if so what the circumstances were but that is the job of the gate agent to figure out. Once they have made their decision, I let them handle it.

It's a short enough flight, that I would have taken the seat in Y (I'm assuming it's EC) and then wrote a complaint when I got to my destination. If this was a transcon or int'l, I would have been more firm about it.

DCA-ATL, I assume 8-7, was delayed starting with the 5PM departure. Delta's glorious delay protection system likely booted him to a random flight, freed 2A, and you got upped. This can happen (from experience) as you walk from the boarding scanner to the seat.

I've complained to them before about this because I usually know what is going on, but its more than a simple fix at this point. The system is trigger based:
1) On any update to flight status/times
2) When performing an OLCI (at least on delta.com)
3) During any cancellation it can go nuts

So my hypothesis is that:
1) He scanned, boarded with FC
2) GA updated departure time
3) IROPS triggered, he lost his seat
4) GA upgraded you, seeing the empty seat
5) FA calls GA, GA sees pax reservation got IROPPED (typical)
6) GA places IROPed pax in 11C cause it was open

Wow--ok, let me answer a couple questions...

Apologies for what some find a misleading title. I wasn't trying to be sensationalist or anything--perhaps I should have just said I had a "Seat Enhancement" issue? :)

Mr. 2A pulled up his email from Delta on his smartphone and showed it to the gate agent. I don't know if it was the real deal or fabricated, but certainly his boarding pass, which was printed by the counter at DCA, looked legit and had all the right info on there. His BP showed RU so I know it was an upgrade and not paid. I had the spit out receipt from the gate machine with 2A on there as well, and I actually hung on to it in case an issue came up.

I can see the argument that I could have made matters worse down the line, especially recalling Mr. 2A's defiance to the flight attendant and his DYKWIA "I'm a Diamond and Million Miler" comment he made when the snafu began. I'd imagine on a Thursday night from DCA-ATL he's not in rare air.

Ultimately if I were flying a long route or had paid for the seat I'd have made a bigger stink, but in the end I think there are bigger fish to fry in life than having 2A.

You were a gentleman.

However it does sound like he was the rightful claimant for the seat. He was the first of the two of you to get the UG, and he also got to the seat first. It is too bad that he had an attitude.

We all know how well DL IT functions, and it looks like it messed things up again. The time to stop Mr 2A was when his boarding pass was scanned, not after he had successfully scanned his BP and made it to his seat.

This is where I have a question/concerns. Here goes: The boarding pass that Mr. 2A showed...It may have been accurate (at some point). But, when his boarding pass was scanned, did it clear or did he get a little print out stub indicating that his seat was NOW in 11A? Maybe Mr. 2A chose not to address it at the gate and decided to keep his seat. I find it odd that he pulled up an email confirming his upgrade. Why do that if his boarding pass said 2A? Because when the GA scanned his 2A boarding pass, he got an updated print out saying he was in 11A. THAT's why he had his "you've been upgraded" email handy. He wanted to claim what may have ORIGINALLY been his, but lost through IRROPP or whatever.

Possible, I suppose. Even if the GA "confiscated" the original BP when a new one spit out, that wouldn't stop someone who planned for such an eventuality ahead of time by printing out two identical BPs.

Possesion is nine tenths of the law !

[QUOTE=paul21;23331543]DCA-ATL, I assume 8-7, was delayed starting with the 5PM departure. Delta's glorious delay protection system likely booted him to a random flight, freed 2A, and you got upped. This can happen (from experience) as you walk from the boarding scanner to the seat.

I've complained to them before about this because I usually know what is going on, but its more than a simple fix at this point. The system is trigger based:
1) On any update to flight status/times
2) When performing an OLCI (at least on delta.com)
3) During any cancellation it can go nuts

So my hypothesis is that:
1) He scanned, boarded with FC
2) GA updated departure time
3) IROPS triggered, he lost his seat

I'm a little unclear on why this would happen--if there are irregular operations, why would that change the upgrade list?

--Skippy