username

So, I am flying out of the US on Saturday on a 10ish hour flight. As any good FTer would do, I did my research and got myself a Row 20 aisle seat on the interim seat map (https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unit...my-2018-a.html).

Overnight Wednesday night, the Polaris + Premium Plus seat map showed up. Unfortunately, not only did the computer not put me in the PP cabin (I am 1K), I lost my bulkhead also. After checking many times through out the day Thursday, I managed to get row 20 aisle on the PP cabin by Thursday evening!

Friday morning, it swapped to the 3 + 3 + 3 777. Again, I lost my bulkhead seat. Luckily, I was able to get a seat in row 21 - the one that does not have a seat in front of it. Not PP but still kind of nice.

Noon time Friday, it swapped back to the Polaris + PP plane. I got assigned a regular Y+ aisle seat. Luckily, I managed to get an exit seat in the back, then eventually a PP cabin seat freed up and then somehow someone moved me to row 20 - bulkhead aisle.

3 hours later, it swapped back to the 3 + 3 + 3 777. I got assigned a bulkhead window, which I don't want on a 10+ hour flight. The row 21 good seats were taken. Luckily, the 3 + 3 + 3 777s have a lot more Y+ seats so at least I could get an aisle seat - not bulkhead though.

Other than the initial swap, each time I got a text.

I know the weather out east might have something to do with all the swaps. Still, I wonder if they consider all the chaos and stress this causes the passengers and I think their algorithm is also questionable.

I guess the bright side is that I am so tired from dealing with all these things, I might actually be able to sleep on the plane tomorrow

cosflyer

username,
roll with the punches and anything you get above and beyond purchased is a bonus!!!!!

username

That is the problem. I think I purchased a bulkhead aisle seat (I know, according to the CoC, I purchased a ticket for UA to get me from A to B but not specific seat or aircraft type). So, trying to protect my bulkhead aisle seat has turned out to be not possible with all the swaps...

segiddins

WineCountryUA

Given the mess in the east, there are going to be lots of aircraft changes due to delayed flights, misplaced aircraft. And for the 772's swapped between seat types., as suggested best to roll with the situation and be glad your flight is not being canceled or excessively delayed.

jparrott

I had the same multiple swap problem on 107, MUC-IAD, today. Went from an E+ aisle on a no-Polaris bird to 31E (yeek) on a Polaris bird, after I had checked in for my VIE-MUC flight on OS's website. Twitter support told me only the airport could change my seat, which was a lie--once I got to wi-fi, I was able to change using the OS check-in utility.

StuckinITH

Another swap can still happen today. Thirty years of flying without ever losing the seat I selected (except for upgrades), it's only these past 2 years on UA that I feel that I need to babysit my reservations.

Kmxu

jcg20

UA901 on Thursday started on a 772 with IPTE, swapped to a new polaris+PE bird, then as we were about to board, swapped back as the loading/catering was wrong. 3 hour delay to move stuff around and a bunch of misconnects. Brutal. They've got to get this figured out...

username

What I am really curious about is how the computer decides how to re-seat people. My observation is that it did not observe the bulkhead and it did not observe the window/aisle preference.

You would think ideally there is some thoughtful manual pre-mapped rules by aircraft types (XXX from this type goes into YYY on this type) then some algorithm for the rest that are not mappable. However, it seems it is somehow based on algorithms that are not quite correct.

I guess how can I be not exhausted having to both check the seat map 100 times and trying to figure out how the computer works

Kacee

I'm not sure "the computer" makes any effort to do anything except assign passengers to open seats (while perhaps attempting to honor aisle/window preferences). To the extent there's an effort to reproduce prior assignments, I believe that's because cs personnel are doing it manually.

username

I asked a gate agent about this and he didn't think it is automatic either. I can now imagine someone dragging and dropping seats on these swaps ...and if it is only that easy

I guess this does not happen enough to invest the money for automation when you can get cheap American labor to do it manually

WineCountryUA

Now that the aircraft swap saga appears to have settled out, let's carry on the discussion of seat re-assignments of swaps in Non-Polaris swap to/from Polaris seat re-assignment process?

WineCountryUA
UA coModerator