Awkwardly Booted from 2A
 

Boarding DCA-ATL, I received an updated seat assignment and upgrade to 2A. On the plane, a man was already seated in 2A. Mr. 2A showed me his kiosk-printed boarding pass and I pulled into the galley and asked the FA to take a look. She took our two boarding passes, called the gate agent, and came back on to the aircraft and told me the seat belonged to me, and Mr. 2A’s correct seat was 11C.

Mr. 2A, somewhat understandably, did not appreciate the notice and told the FA he wasn’t moving. He then got up, came to the galley and by this time, another gate agent came on board the aircraft. FA explained the situation to the gate agent and Mr. 2A showed him the email he received two days ago that he’d been upgraded (its been a while for me so I forgot those actually get sent). GA took our passes and called up once again. He came back with the same message, I was to be in 2A, Mr. 2A was to be in 11C. I checked my app and sure enough, it said 2A for me.

Mr. 2A said he would go to the ticket counter and talk this over with a supervisor. By this time the boarding line had thinned and it seemed silly to let this fester, so I offered to take 11C so we could get on with it. I figured the flight isn’t all that long and we were now flirting with the potential for a delay which seemed silly for the other 140 people on board. I took 11C much to the protest of the FA’s and they comped me a beer as Mr. 2A settled into 2A again.

The whole episode was awkward and I’m a bit confused as to how it could happen. It was clear Mr. 2A wasn’t in the mood to move, and that he had a seat assignment for 2A before I did, but my original seat in the bulkhead row (10) had been reassigned to someone else and seemed like we were running thin on options. What would you have done? Should I follow up with Delta?

I commend you for your consideration of the other passengers! A mix up for sure, but you took the high road.

+1

Sounds like you did the right thing. Like you said, he had 2A before you.

My guess is that he got an upgrade. Printed the BP then made a change to a different part of his reservation potentially requiring the downgrade back to Y. He re-checked in but kept his original BP.

I too would like to commend you for being the bigger person.

I look forward to reading your next post where you were unexpectedly upgraded on a long flight. You did the nice thing and I'm sure it will come back to you.

Not so sure. DL would not have held the flight while Mr. 2A sorted things out. As soon as he popped off the aircraft, OP could haave taken his seat, the flight closed, pushed and been at ATL while 2A was still yacking with somebody about the issue.

The title is a little misleading. You weren't booted. You chose to take the coach seat. With that said. Props to you for being the bigger person. Although I would agree with Often1. More than likely if the other passenger wanted to go back in the terminal and make a stink about it, Delta would have simply removed him and pushed the flight back.

Great job on taking the highroad, seems like the guy was a bit of a jerk imo.

But hey we all have those people

^^ +1

I'll add another ^

and heres wishing to you that your choice to take the high road comes back to you in the form of more upgrades or Porche rides

Perhaps OP's referring to the other guy being booted from 2A. It was certainly awkward, although he got the seat back.

A receipt should have popped out of the boarding pass scanner with his correct seating assignment when he presented his 2A boarding pass to the gate agent as he was boarding, shouldn't it?!

Was he a non-rev?:D

Yes, although when a bunch of people are boarding at once, the person getting the printed little seat receipt can be in the jetway before the paper pops out of the printer and by then it can be unclear to whom it belongs. This was my experience when I played GA for the day at the DL ATL DO.

The GA might have offloaded the OP in anticipation of him misconnecting and then failed to notice that he boarded before upgrading the OP into 2A.

Unless the OP saw the email that Mr 2A claimed to have confirming his upgrade, I would be suspicious that he may have made that up in an attempt to keep 2A.