rickg523

So in the end, Princess did​​ sit in a middle seat?
The one she said she couldn't sit in?

Fraser

I've come across this a few times, some malicious, some not.

-About 18 months ago flying intra-Europe business class on BA I board and find a guy in my window seat, his wife is in the aisle seat and as many know the middle is blocked off. I show him my boarding pass and he moves but sits in the blocked middle. I tell him that isn't a seat and he points at the seat indicator thing above (this is an A319) that shows 2D/E/F so again I explain it isn't a seat in business class. He then looks at his boarding pass and realised he and his wife are in 2A and 2C. His response was to have a go at me for making this a problem!

-On a train last year in the UK I had reserved seats. The OH and I board and find a very busy train and with people in our seats. I tell the person they are in our seats and they complain noting someone is in their seats. I told them to take that up with the ticket inspector as I would if they didn't move...and so they did.

The most unusual for me was in 2006 flying CPT-LHR on BA. I was in 1A and relaxing before departure. An FA shows up with another passenger and asks to see my boarding pass. I grab my boarding pass and passport and see her holding an exact duplicate of my boarding pass complete with name, FF details etc. the guy cleared outbound security, immigration and the gate with a mismatched BP and passport...

frobozzelectric

i never ever confront the person, just always show my bp to cabin crew and they take it from there.

Badenoch

The OP handled it well with a brief conversation to ascertain the poacher hadn't made an error. Upon encountering resistance going directly to the FA is the appropriate escalation.

I've accidentally sat in the wrong seat, had people accidentally sit in mine. It is preferable to sort that out independently if everyone is agreeable. I'll also swap for an equivalent seat if I'm feeling charitable but will not acquiesce to a poacher trying to get a better seat that was assigned to me. They are going to move. Just how complicated it becomes is up to them.

Collierkr

When asked to move seats I routinely quote the fare I paid for my seat and offer to move for that amount. Would have been interesting if the OP had offered to move for $89. But nice to see them dig in.

Proudelitist

Oh, they may not back up the rightful owner. Reasons vary, but usually the most common ones are that they simply want to turn the plane around and not "take the late" on it. The closer to pushback they get, the more tunnel vision they get and the more likely they are to say "Just take any seat!" or "sort it out later".

The other common reason is that the poacher is a non-rev, and they are friends with the FA. Even if not friends, they tend to get tribal with other company crew and although it's against the rules, they will try to do their buddies favors.

If you think this is the case, you have to call them out on it because they get in serious trouble for stuff like that. If you ask to see the poacher's BP, look for "NRSA" printed on it.

CDTraveler

We made that mistake recently, and it would have been nice if the proper owner of the seat had been halfway civil in his first approach. It was on an older aircraft that had clearly been reconfigured to cram in more seats and the numbers on the bins did not align properly with the rows. We had boarded earlier, the seat owner showed up late and started the "conversation" by yelling "You're in my seat!" (we were in aisle/middle, his was aisle) When we checked the BP's and doubled-checked the row numbers, I apologized and we moved back one row.

The guy now seated ahead of us immediately put his seat all the way back, and shortly thereafter got told off by the FA because he didn't want to put it forward for taxiing and take-off. What goes around, comes around...

gobluetwo

When someone was sitting in my seat once and wouldn't move, I told them I'd gladly swap with them for $50, or that I could ring the call button and have the FA sort it out. They ended up moving.

jimlad48

A few years ago I was flying LHR to IAD in Virgin P/E. Had a nice seat, and an elderly indian lady sat down next to me. Then a few minutes later a younger Indian lady said 'excuse me, you're in my seat'.

I asked to see her boarding pass, confident that I was in the right seat, and it turned out that we'd both got the same boarding pass seat number (i.e. they both said 12B or whatever it was). She had flown in from India on a connecting flight, and was due to care for the older lady next to me.

I spoke to the crew, said given the lady in question was caring for the other woman, that I would be more than happy to move, but as the cabin was looking full, I'd prefer it if I could move forward in the plane rather than backwards.

a few minutes later I was settling into my lovely business class seat :-)

The_Bouncer

Nice result!

muji

Good deed. Good result.

tjl

How does assigning two passenger to the same seat occur, and how frequently does it happen?

celle

I've had it happen to me. On a flight AKL-SYD-DXB, the other passenger with my seat number had boarded in AKL and after the plane stopped in SYD, I boarded with my husband.

We let the cabin crew deal with it. They upgraded the other passenger, since that was easier than upgrading two of us.

It was all dealt with amicably and we were happy with the result.

The_Bouncer

Sadly in this kind of situation, good deeds don't often yield good results.

Jimmie Jet

I paid for an upgrade , about $75 once, a guy asked me if I would take $100 to switch seats with him as his buddy was in the middle, i took the $100 and had some drinks on the plane ! Maybe there is a market to resell your seat on a plane to the highest bidder around ......