Flying a lot UA TPAC flights between LAX & PVG, I've seen several passengers from the China side try to sneak into Business First when the FA's weren't looking. One time on a 1/2 empty cabin in BF, I fell asleep a couple of hours into the flight, and woke up to a Chinese gentleman sitting in the adjacent business seat.

I got a little suspicious, so got up I asked the FA if somebody in Business decided to move their seat assignment next to me. She said no, so I asked who was the guy in the seat next to me. She then asked for the guy's boarding pass (in English) but he claimed (or feigned) ignorance of the language, so the Chinese speaking FA came over and asked the same question. He pulled it out and it was for an economy seat. When she told him to move back, they had an argument in Chinese that lasted for a couple of minutes. He finally went back to his seat escorted by the FA.

When she came back, I asked her what they were arguing about. She said he refused to get up because the seat was too comfortable and he already had settled in there, so there was no reason for him to give it up, especially if no one was using it. She said that she explained he would have to pay for the seat, but he argued that no one was using it anyway, so why does he have to pay? So she said he had three choices; 1) pay for the seat, 2) move back to his original seat voluntarily, or 3) Be forced back to his original seat, and be arrested upon landing.

Flight this week to East Coast from DEN, FC is full, rest of aircraft mostly empty, tons of wide open 3 seats in E+, UA. Women leaves FC and sits in E+ seat for entire flight, 3 hours. After landing and the 'ding' comes on, she comes back to her FC 2B seat. Never seen that before.

Maybe it was her social experiment to see if anyone would post about it on the internet.

LOL, maybe, but she was content, I guess.

Smelly or otherwise annoying/offensive neighbor in 2A?

Wanting a flat bed on an aircraft that doesn't have them?

Good on you for getting that seat poacher moved back. I'd be absolutely livid I woke up to find that I now have to climb over someone for aisle access (why UA doesn't have direct-aisle access in J is another discussion entirely...).

At one place I worked, there was one top executive who was known to prefer 3 coach seats to one F seat flying TATL. (This was long before lie-flat seating.)

I did this once, actually. The woman seated next to me had applied far too much perfume, and I have an allergy. Moving to an empty row in the Y+ bulkhead was my best option. I discreetly asked the F/A if I could move back, and she had no problem with it - in fact, she also ran me back drinks anyway.

I stayed there until landing, though - not sure why you'd return to F for the last few minute of the flight. Maybe baggage was stored up there or the F/A had hung the passenger's coat?

(As an aside, this is a good reminder for the community - if you like wearing perfume or cologne, please be considerate and apply it at your destination. Wearing it onboard can be a real problem for those of us who react negatively to some of the more common scent components.)

"Your nasty smelling scent may be cheaper by the gallon but you do NOT have to wear the WHOLE gallon!" @:-)

Definitely. I witnessed a flight that was almost pulling onto the runway to depart, turn around and come back to the gate because Dispatch demanded a few crew-members who needed to deadhead out needed seats, so lo and behold I got to go on and order 2 standby pax off that I had cleared bc dispatch decided (about 10 min late) they needed to send that crew back.

Although doors should never be re-opened for ppl to get on that missed in my personal opinion.

Unless the plane hasn't moved so it's easy.

But if there had been paying pax waiting when the plane was returned for the "must fly"s, would they have also bumped non-revs?

The most hilariously clumsy attempt I've seen was on a very lightly loaded (~15 in Y, and ~5 in J) A320 ZRH-GVA mid-morning. I was seated in the front row of Y and was one of the first to board, so I got to watch the entire drama.

The woman who boarded after me took a J window seat. Another passenger arrived and looked confused. FA looks at first woman's BP, points to mid-Y somewhere. She heads back, stands in third row of Y until FA's back is turned, goes forward and takes a seat near the back of J. Next J passenger looks at her, his BP, calls FA, FA sends the woman back to cattle class again. This was repeated at least twice more, as the woman kept trying to take J seats and getting found out. After everyone had boarded, she had one more try. The FA doing the final check before takeoff saw her and there were, umm, Words.

This attempt was particularly ludicrous on a daylight flight of less than an hour when each Y passenger had a full row of seats to themselves; that is, there were no significant benefits to being in J compared to Y.

I think the funniest thing was her bad luck in only picking the J seats that had been allocated.

Karma?

Sorry to resurrect this thread but it made for some good reading. My tale is not as good as some of the classics on here but I was flying F from JFK to LHR with BA and after the meal service I took a stroll back to look at the other cabins as I had not flown BA TATL for 16 years.

I was talking to the Cabin Crew and then thanked them for their time and headed back to my seat. Oh you can't go there she said thats First Class. I know I said, I am in 1K. I don't believe you she said you need to go back to your seat. I started to head to the curtain and she said wait a moment. She was very nice about it and at that time the curtain opened and the FA working my side said oh I wondered where you had got to.. I said, I was just checking out the other cabins and heading back or trying to.. The first FA was mortified and very apologetic. I told her not to worry, you do get people that try it on she said.

The FA looking after me came up to me in flight and said that her colleague was totally mortified and wondered if she should have done anything differently. I said to tell her that she did what I would have expected to keep the cabin exclusive.