Seat Swap Request Horror Stories
Apr 14, 2016, 9:11 am
#676
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Finally back in Boston after escaping from New York
Posts: 13,644
As usual, to cover their legal obligations, the airlines will state this in the COC. It's fine print. As such, they have a sound argument that the customer was advised that they may not get adjacent seats and if the customer failed to read the COC, that's their problem.
What can or can't the airline put in that COC? What's to stop them from sneaking in something like, "On command, the passenger in 18-C must run up and down the aisle while imitating a gorilla?"
Mike
Apr 14, 2016, 10:04 am
#677
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: London, England.
Programs: BA
Posts: 8,476
It's for the airlines to manage, which in practice they do flawlessly. I can't see what the issue is with US carriers not being able to look to UK airlines and see how to do it, if they don't know themselves.
Apr 14, 2016, 3:06 pm
#678
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Location: MSP
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My husband, son, and I were traveling together. The flight home was 3-4-3 and we had chosen a window, aisle, and middle section aisle in the same row. The plan was that I was going to offer my aisle for the middle seat as long as the person in the middle did not try to seat poach the window or aisle before we got there. My son and I boarded first and I took my middle section aisle seat but there was a woman standing at his window seat. She didn’t ask; she told him that he was switching with her husband, and you could see the husband a few rows back standing at a middle seat. My son told her no, and she should get out of his seat. Again she told him that he was trading with her husband and he said no, he wasn’t. She then said that since he didn’t have family, he had to swap. I leaned over and said I was his family and he wasn’t going anywhere. She then moved to the aisle seat and he took his seat. My husband finally made it on to the plane to find her now sitting in his seat and she told him that he needed to trade with her husband. He said that he was sitting with his son at which point she got up and called a flight attendant and said they were rude and she refused to sit between them. The flight attendant found her a middle seat further back in the plane but I did see that she managed to get someone to switch and ended up next to her husband in the aisle seat. My guys ended up with an empty seat between them.
Annoyed passenger bursts out wailing "They just all died and you had to remind me of that . . ."
Apr 14, 2016, 10:23 pm
#679
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Apr 15, 2016, 12:22 am
#680
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: London, England.
Programs: BA
Posts: 8,476
https://www.caa.co.uk/Passengers/On-...ng-allocation/
That's the official CAA policy. It is then up to each airline to put into their AOC (Air Operators Certificate) how they will comply with every procedure, for every aircraft type on their AOC. The CAA writes its procedures here in very general terms, for example it says if children cannot be in the same seat row they can be one behind, only to cater for airlines with aircraft like the Britten-Norman Trislander with 1+1 seating.
When the airline writes up their AOC procedures it is then signed off by both airline and the CAA and becomes the formal regulation, which can indeed vary a bit between each airline. Breaches of your AOC conditions you signed up to can lead to fines, or even withdrawl of the certificate (= end of airline).
The BA procedure for this takes several pages (the AOC can run to thousands). The BA computer seat allocation procedures manage this.
Sorry to have been so "ignorant" of something I've been doing most of my life. How about your credentials then ?
Last edited by WHBM; Apr 15, 2016 at 2:50 am
Apr 15, 2016, 1:39 am
#681
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Malaga, Spain
Posts: 1,077
It is the law in the UK, and other countries as well. The Civil Aviation Authority here requires that at least one adult in a group which includes a child must be sat with the child. This is seen as a safety requirement in case of an evacuation.
It's for the airlines to manage, which in practice they do flawlessly. I can't see what the issue is with US carriers not being able to look to UK airlines and see how to do it, if they don't know themselves.
It's for the airlines to manage, which in practice they do flawlessly. I can't see what the issue is with US carriers not being able to look to UK airlines and see how to do it, if they don't know themselves.
Apr 15, 2016, 5:15 am
#682
Join Date: Jan 2010
Posts: 9,307
https://www.caa.co.uk/Passengers/On-...ng-allocation/
Apr 15, 2016, 6:32 am
#683
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: London, England.
Programs: BA
Posts: 8,476
You need to read my bit above, this is how requirements are written over here, it is formal guidance to airlines for what to include in their procedures (that they then must not deviate from). The way they actually achieve it can and does vary from carrier to carrier according to their own resources.
Apr 15, 2016, 7:40 am
#684
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Oxford, Mississippi
Programs: Delta Silver thanks to Million Miles; Choice Plat., point scrounger everywhere
Posts: 1,595
If not sitting next to a parent is indeed potentially harmful to a child, and it can be shown that a parent could have but failed to pay the extra fee for an aisle or window seat next to their child, then as soon as the parent complains about not being able to sit next to their child they should be arrested and charged with endangering the health and welfare of a child. It is, after all, the parent who is to blame in these situations.
Obviously this wouldn't solve the IROP problem, but it would take care of skinflint parents who are too sorry to reserve a seat next to their child in advance.
Obviously this wouldn't solve the IROP problem, but it would take care of skinflint parents who are too sorry to reserve a seat next to their child in advance.
Apr 15, 2016, 12:46 pm
#685
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Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: Shanghai
Posts: 42,043
If not sitting next to a parent is indeed potentially harmful to a child, and it can be shown that a parent could have but failed to pay the extra fee for an aisle or window seat next to their child, then as soon as the parent complains about not being able to sit next to their child they should be arrested and charged with endangering the health and welfare of a child. It is, after all, the parent who is to blame in these situations.
Obviously this wouldn't solve the IROP problem, but it would take care of skinflint parents who are too sorry to reserve a seat next to their child in advance.
Obviously this wouldn't solve the IROP problem, but it would take care of skinflint parents who are too sorry to reserve a seat next to their child in advance.
Otherwise, some people will take your words literally.
Apr 18, 2016, 1:04 am
#686
Suspended
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Location: Bregenz, Austria
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Apr 18, 2016, 1:32 pm
#687
Join Date: May 2014
Location: CMH, HNL
Programs: UA, HA
Posts: 583
A kid who's that quick on the draw deserves to sit
Apr 18, 2016, 4:30 pm
#688
Join Date: Apr 2015
Programs: AA Gold, Enterprise PLT, Marriott Gold
Posts: 604
Actually have a positive seat swap story that was very near terrible for someone, had I not chimed in.
Redeye HNL to LAX in AA MCE, lady behind me had the whole row to herself, a lady in first class saw this, got the FA, and they asked the lady if she would like to move to F aisle and the F pax would take her Y seat/empty row to lay down. Of course Y pax agrees and it's done. I told the newly made Y pax she should sit on aisle and refuse anyone who wants to bum rush a seat since she traded F for a Y row with FA approval, but she just smiled and sat at the window leaving middle and aisle open. No sooner than 10,000 ft a lady on the aisle a row back bum rushes up and plops in the empty aisle the old F pax had open. I could hear as the old F lady nervously tried to ask her to not sit there because of what she had done, but the lady essentially ignored her. Even though it wasn't my business, I chimed in and politely explained it to the girl who bum rushed up a row what was going on. The lady went back, old F pax got her row back to lay down, and an FA came up and gave me a few things of Vodka as a "Thank you" for helping a silly situation.
Redeye HNL to LAX in AA MCE, lady behind me had the whole row to herself, a lady in first class saw this, got the FA, and they asked the lady if she would like to move to F aisle and the F pax would take her Y seat/empty row to lay down. Of course Y pax agrees and it's done. I told the newly made Y pax she should sit on aisle and refuse anyone who wants to bum rush a seat since she traded F for a Y row with FA approval, but she just smiled and sat at the window leaving middle and aisle open. No sooner than 10,000 ft a lady on the aisle a row back bum rushes up and plops in the empty aisle the old F pax had open. I could hear as the old F lady nervously tried to ask her to not sit there because of what she had done, but the lady essentially ignored her. Even though it wasn't my business, I chimed in and politely explained it to the girl who bum rushed up a row what was going on. The lady went back, old F pax got her row back to lay down, and an FA came up and gave me a few things of Vodka as a "Thank you" for helping a silly situation.
Apr 18, 2016, 4:59 pm
#689
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: NYC
Programs: DL PM, Marriott Gold, Hertz PC, National Exec
Posts: 6,736
I've asked someone to swap twice in the past three months, both on DL. In one case, I asked the person sitting in 7C (Economy Comfort aisle) if he would mind moving to 6C (also Economy comfort aisle) so I could sit across from my family. He was traveling alone, and had no objection (seems like a push or miniscule improvement on his part).
In the second case, I offered to swap an FC aisle for an Economy Comfort aisle (I got upgraded, wife/child on separate PNR did not). The lady in question had absolutely no objection.
I would never poach a seat, or demand somebody move, nor would I ask someone to swap in a scenario where, were I in their shoes, I wouldn't regard the swap as at least neutral.
In the second case, I offered to swap an FC aisle for an Economy Comfort aisle (I got upgraded, wife/child on separate PNR did not). The lady in question had absolutely no objection.
I would never poach a seat, or demand somebody move, nor would I ask someone to swap in a scenario where, were I in their shoes, I wouldn't regard the swap as at least neutral.
Apr 19, 2016, 2:21 am
#690
Join Date: May 2010
Location: Wonderful Weald of kent
Programs: BAEC Bronze
Posts: 989
Yes cestmoi but in situation one you offering like for like (maybe even marginally better as one row forward) and in situation 2 were offering a better seat.
Most of the horror stories involve people wanting to improve their usually crappy seat at your expense!
Most of the horror stories involve people wanting to improve their usually crappy seat at your expense!