jsloan

To be clear, if no passenger used it, it would be the biggest success imaginable (provided that they were booking regular economy, and not booking away to another airline). But I agree with your general point, which is that DL, UA, and AA are laughing their way to the bank on the BE concept.

trm2

When purchasing BE seats, one should immediately be taken to the seat selection - there is a back row on every flight. If that one is full, then the second to last row, etc. Force seat selection in the back of the plane, then you don't need to worry about blocking rows and scrambling during the boarding process. Oh, and you can't leave a middle seat open.

Aknoff

Except I didn't have a seat near my family or the others. I was on a separate reservation from my wife and son because I flew to MSN on a different day. But, I had selected the seat next to them for MSN-DEN. Then, I was automatically upgraded. When I went to decline, I spelled this solution out for the GA: 1. Decline the upgrade. 2. Give me back my original selected seat. 3. Swap my original seat (which I'm back in) with my niece. Everyone wins. She told me flatly no and refused to use common sense to solve an easily fixable problem.

MSPeconomist

At considerable cost to UA, so at least the displaced passenger or (former) customer is able to somewhat get back at UA for its actions.

MSPeconomist

I might be confused here, but surely you could have offered to swap your upgraded FC seat for the new middle seat in the back that your family forced him to accept in exchange for his assigned aisle seat. Most passengers would agree to that exchange happily.

LTBoston

Yes, I don't understand why that didn't happen on the plane.

DELee

He was with his wife and kid further up front.

David

StuckinITH

Now , we are at 12 pages. It would have made the whole story clearer if the OP had mentioned where his wife, his kid and himself were seated. And we still don't know if his kid was of an age that he/she could have been seated in the middle seat on the row behind the aunt.

bocastephen

Hopefully they did so voluntarily rather than feel they were forced - if they were forced, they should be compensated.

They are not going to call the police over this. Also, crewmember instructions are supported by published airline operations guides and FAA/DOT regulations - customer service issues, which this falls under, are not legally enforceable crew member instructions. No different than refusing to lower your window shade or refusing to finish your inflight meal or any such nonsensical demand. What would happen is they would call either a GA or the Capt, and while they are doing that, I would be texting my UA sales rep with details of what is going on, who would call the terminal manager or station manager depending on the location and instruct them to leave me and my seat alone and that would be the end of it unless someone wants to get called in for an uncomfortable conversation they probably would prefer to avoid. Absent a UA sales rep, one can simply stand their ground and there isn't much that can be done. This is a customer service issue and has nothing to do with operations, safety, or security. Yes, they could deplane everyone over this, but highly unlikely especially if the person being ordered into a middle seat has any sort of status against the unprepared family on a BE fare. To do anything else would be highly ludicrous on UA's part.

Society may value children, but they don't value pushy, obnoxious soccer moms who think the world revolves around them and their children.

I disagree. The warning is very clear. No advance seat assignments. [T]hey really should understand that by selecting that fare, they will not be able to select a seat, change their ticket, or bring on a carry-on that doesn't fit under the seat. No seat assignment means no seat assignment.

Being forced into a middle seat in favor of an unprepared family is most certainly grounds for compensation.

Ragnarok

It says it right there. A red X next to Sit with your group or family.




Even outside of the air travel, no seat assignment means you could be sitting away from your group.
Buses; subway, train, ferry, open seating movie theater; there is simply no excuse!

SeaHawg

Often1

The whole point of BE, other than carriers hoping that you won't purchase it, is that when you do, the carrier fills you in where there are seats available after others have selected.

You are presuming that nobody wants the last row and that is close to correct. But, I would take the last row aisle before an E+ middle.

dilanesp

I think this is right.

There are children involved. Rules are different in that situation.

bocastephen

No, actually they are not. Rules are rules - Basic Economy has a fixed set of rules....there are no govt rules about sitting children with their parents in the same cabin. This is vastly different than being asked to move seats for an equipment swap, broken seat, etc.

If parents want to sit with their children, they need to buy fares that allow for this feature, that's it.

DenverBrian

Sadly, red X's aren't enough. United really needs to telegraph this to a consumer group that is notorious for lacking good reading comprehension.

Here's one idea. Of course, UA probably doesn't do it this way because it would keep more people from booking BE!