"Upgraded" to the middle seat of a Fokker 70
 

This morning, on a KLC flight, I was "upgraded" (at the gate, on an award ticket) to C... only to find out it was the middle seat of a full F70 ;-)

Besides the fact that I actually see loosing my nice aisle seat fot a middle seat, even in row 2, as a downgrade, I think the guys around me (who actually paid C) were not very happy to have me sitting on "their" middle seat.

The captain actually came in the cabin and announced that AF messed up things but that to sort this out would take 1 hour, so he apologized.

After my neighbors ate their box, the FA came back and offered me one... which I politely declined as I just had a snack before boarding.

When I booked the award ticket, it was a 737 (strange for a BOD-AMS)... which could explain the fully booked F70 and thus the non existent "space for your confort" for C PAX.

I am on BOD-AMS next week and it was an F70 when I booked and is now shoing as a 737-800.

Ok just logged in to double check and it is now back down to a F70... so has gone from F70 - 738 - F70 all within 3 weeks since I booked it..

Seats have been changed twice too and no longer allow selection.

That is quite interesting, as the Fokker fleet is supposed to have a seat blocked. It must have been the preferred option rather than to IDB passengers.

Preferred to whom? The paying business class members now have a good case for a refund..

...which IMHO was the right thing to do if the C-PAX get a refund on their ticket.

I would hate to be the PAX who gets denied because the middle seat has to stay empty on a short hop.

But again, the PAX who paid the C-Ticket should get a refund of at least the difference between Y and C.

I am also on the AMS-BOD in around 10 days and have a seat assignement for a Fokker. I will keep you posted.

IMHO, that would have to be some compensation offered (though the price difference between a discounted business class and full fare Y can be quite low I would propose a fixed amount or something)

Are you on Facebook?

Perhaps you had been selected by your two seat companians. ;)
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Why full Y? Perhaps at time of booking discount economy was available. If that person had chosen to fly economy, it would probably not have been in full Y.

If you would consider this a involuntary downgrade I believe the 261/2004 rule says one should get a refund of 75% of the fare paid.

KLM policy for involuntary downgrade:

Note: this extract is from an old copy of the Compensation policy. It seems that, in the current version, they omitted the downgrading paragraph. Strange, but I think this is still valid per EU regulation.

So I flew AMS-BOD the other day, on an Embraer. My seat assignment did not change but several pax had their BPs changed manually (understand : with a pen) at the gate.