Passengers asked to sit in crew seats
 

I was recently on a BA flight from LGW to Las Vegas. During the flight, a passenger and his son moved to sit in the crew seats on either side of the aircraft in the middle of economy. I think the guy mentioned that he was asked to move by the crew so they could use his seat to rest in (the flight was full).

Is this common? I would guess that this was only an offer from the cabin crew, not a demand. Despite the extra space and legroom on offer, I would not be happy if I was compelled to move to a seat without a table or AV system away from my family. It's also not great for those in the exit room seats, some of whom may have paid a premium for that row, to have another passenger facing them for the majority of the flight.

For those interested in the specifics, it was the individual crew seats facing seats 26B and 26J on this layout:
http://www.seatguru.com/airlines/Bri...777-200B_2.php

I have no idea but surely this is bogus. Why would a flight attendant ask someone to move out of the comfort of their seat so that the staff member could sit there and rest and the passenger sit in the crappy crew seat?

There are many threads about pax sitting in jump seats on long-haul flights when the flight is full. Often deadheading staff. If asked I would refuse (and I have done so in a similar situation on KLM).

If it was a short flight, I'd totally sit there just to say that I have.

On an airline where crew comfort comes first, this is perfectly possible.

Maybe an inop crew rest location. This is a long-enough flight to require crew rest and without it, the aircraft would have to divert and wait.

Alternative is to move a pax -- presumably give them some gesture if they ask -- or divert and wait.

Stuff happens.

Can you refuse that a passenger be moved to the jump seat in front of you if it reduces the legroom you are entitled to?

What likely happened was that the two pax were non-revs (airline employees on passes). Some airlines allow employees to travel in the crew rest seats if no other seats are available. These seats are normally blocked off to all pax, for in-flight crew rest (if the a/c has no separate crew bunks).

At the discretion of the gate agent and in-charge, non-rev pax may sit in those seats if they agree to swap with the jumpseats to allow FAs to rest.

I did (before departure) and the person (non-rev) was offloaded.

^

This makes much more sense.

Your examples are saying the people moving are not regular paying passengers. You folks think the moved people were crew.

The father and son in question certainly seemed to be unaffiliated to BA. My best guess is that BA policy is for crew to rest in unused economy seats, and because the flight was full they pushed a couple of people into the crew seats.

Maybe if I was travelling alone and was not interested in watching an in flight movie I would move for the extra room, but I'd have no problem in refusing if I wanted to keep the seat I had paid for!

They may have worked for another airline, as there are numerous Interline employee agreements.

The chance of revenue pax being "pushed into crew seats" is very slim. ICAO regulations and individual airline regulations specify crew jumpseat access, and the ticket holders' rights under the conditions of carriage would all prevent that.

Then again, anything is possible, right?

;)

I would refuse as a paying passenger. Why would I want to sit in a seat the crew don't want to sit in!

I've sat in a BA crew jumpseat for about 9 hours and it was horrible! I wouldn't wish it on anyone! The seat has minimal padding (so it can flip up), the harness, which had to be fastened when the seatbelt sign went on, which it did, was a full over the shoulder effort, very uncomfy, and you are absolutely bolt upright!

I ended up in the seat because the lady of extreme size was taking up her seat, half her husband's seat and my seat - I couldn't put the armrest down, even slightly! In retrospect, with more miles under my belt, I should have refused to allow it and had her offloaded - there wasn't a spare seat on the plane in any class, and the next flight out was something like 3 days later!