I agree, as sad as it is, exiting the plane is a good option and gets more attention focused on the issue. Then the emphasis is it get you happy and back on the plane, as opposed to just sitting there as a captive audience while it is "being discussed".

On a similar vein....I was traveling NWA, LAX-NRT in Y, Nov 2000 (before joining FT, naturally ) and discovered much to my horror, that on this particular row, the 2 seats (window/aisle) had about 4" less pitch than all the other rows -- must have been 28-29", godawful. I used my carryon to actually "relative measure" the pitch. It was just this row, not any other on the plane!

I hadn't asked for an exit row seat, didn't think to at the time But I flagged down a FA, showed her how my knees were jammed 2" into the seat ahead of me, and poilitely asked if I could switch to the exit row after we were in the air, if it wasn't already occupied.

"No sir. you cannot, this exit row is reserved as crew rest, and not only that, but we use it to turn around our carts for service. Please take your seat as assigned."

I was pretty mad, and so I took her advise to "take my seat as assigned", and marched off the plane to get a new seat assignment. Which one? None other than exit row we had got been discussing. No problem at all. Got back on the plane, left my boarding pass out where she could see it, and I didn't care if she glared at me the rest of the trip, in fact I rather enjoyed it.

I couldn't believe that she would have let me go 10 hours in that nasty row, if there was another available.

Then...just before pushback, there was some shuffling to get a family moved together, and another pax was moved to the row I left (by the same FA as before, no less). I watched some terrible movies that flight to deafen out the screams coming from that seat. I did feel a smidgen bad about it, just not as bad as it would have felt otherwise.

So I echo the comments from other posters. If the seat is not comfortable, especially those long flights, consider all the options. @:-)

I don't feel so bad now. Hopefully you had access to sleeping pills to knock you out. I would have gone stir crazy otherwise

Over the years lurking here I have noticed what I believe to be an inordinate amount of threads like this one when compared to other airlines. I've not had the bad experiences except for a couple of G/A's that were mean AND rude.

Where there is smoke there is usually fire.

not always true...some groups are just more vocal than others, I see it all the time in FT

Not to sure I agree. the US and UA boards are VERY vociferious, yet this board seems filled with the type of thing we see here. Like I said before I've not been a victim of it.

Update:

My friend received a phone call from NW passenger services - it wasnt an 800 number but a number back to headquarters and somebody w a director title -he had sent an email about this to a specific NW executive - dont know who - but I credit him that he didnt just pass it off to some Att: Customer service.

The response - which he thought was generally nice - was that he will be receiving a letter with two intl upgrade certs of some type (he didnt specify) and 25,000 miles.

The story the woman gave didn't exactly match, but it sounded like NW did look into his complaint. They told him that his seat had been listed as inoperative (opposite from what he was told) and he should have received a new seat assignment at check-in - as opposed to his pre-reserved seat. According to what he was told by customer service, this did not happen and by the time the crew found out about this, upgrades had been processed, the cabin was full, the flight had been closed out so it was impossible to change seats. He was offered a working seat in Y which he declined and an flight officer had personally come back to see if he could get the seat to work but could not. The customer service rep said the crew report said they had also tried to see if there were any possiblities to switch for him with children but whomever they approached declined (again opposite from what he told me).

However, he is a valued customer and thus the compensation and profuse apologies and thus the compensation. The person who called him said she didnt have any information about the dead heading FAs in C.

He was thrilled with the compensation and despite his bad experience feels like he came out way ahead - i think for 25,000 miles and intl upgrades he would have let them spill hot coffee on him. Anyway, he was very happily surprised with the call and what he is getting and suspects it is because while his complaint was valid and he says he was treated horribly, obviously the crew had a different tale and NW probably figured making him happy was the best way to resolve it.

Anyway, will update if he doesnt receive his miles and ups but at least one NW flyer is happy tonite