joe_miami

But that's the thing: I'm not even talking about shenanigans here. Given all of the hoops and legalities associated with modern U.S. air travel, it seems odd that a passenger sitting in the seat shown on her b.p. should unquestioningly change seats because some FA says her seat had changed. And after the Dao nonsense and United announcing far and wide that seated passengers won't henceforth be removed, it's easy to imagine some pax might mistakenly believe that applies to post-boarding seat changes, too.

There's no way you would have been in the wrong in this case. Pax aren't expected to look at the scanner to re-confirm their seat assignment. This would have been entirely on the GA (although, obviously, one assumes you wouldn't have protested at being upgraded after boarding, precluding any problems like the one being discussed).

jsloan

Well, apropros of nothing, sure, but when two passengers have the same seat assignment, clearly one of them is going to have to move, and it's not at all obvious to me that the answer should be "whoever got here first wins." So, if you then get the FA's help, and they say "please move to 38F," IMO, your choices are to ask to be re-accommodated in another seat or on another flight, or to move to 38F.

Sure, but I would still have been sitting in the wrong seat, and if someone else came up with a boarding pass for my seat, they would be the rightful occupant. My point was just that it is simple to imagine a scenario where I had a boarding pass for the seat that I was in, but that I was in the wrong seat. Obviously, this situation would have been very easy to solve.

joe_miami

The few times I've seen seat disputes after boarding, the FAs have always begged off and had the GA handle it. Regardless, in cases of a duplicate seat assignment, doesn't "whoever got here first" make the most sense, if the overriding goal is to get the flight off on time?

canadiancow

Disobeying a lawful and reasonable ("change seats" is reasonable, "give me money" is not) instruction from a crew member is probably going to result in you being considered a security risk by everyone involved at the airline.

It's not a matter of whether it makes you a security risk, just whether it makes them THINK you're a security risk.

I'm totally on the pax side here, but you have to look at this from how the airline will react.

TravelLawyer

I’m not saying that it doesn’t happen. I even gave examples of when seat changes happened to me. But jsloan seemed to have indicated that it happens quite frequently for no reason at all. The posts you linked have extensive lists of when such seat changes happen - none of which was indicated or acknowledged by the FA in the instance cited as the subject of this thread. If a FA told me to my seat assignment was wrong (especially if it’s one that is upgraded or paid additionally for - like E+ or exit row), most people in that scenario would question it (or at least ask for a reason) too and I don’t think this should be the hill to die on.

That said, I think the proper course of action would have been to ring up customer relations after the flight to discuss the lack of professionalism by FA, especially since it seemed like the actual seat problem “resolved itself” when the other passenger found another seat to take elsewhere. THAT is the part that I believe most people take issue with - there was no need to reopen the can of worms with the FA on board.

narvik

Totally agree!

Partially agree!

narvik

Try telling that to a Federal Air Marshall!

physioprof

Sounds about right, with the addition that being accused of lying by a FA is at the extremely inflammatory far end of the scale of FA behavior.

physioprof

The asserted fact of "grabbing" FA versus "tapping" remains unconfirmed.

txaggiemiles

We have had multiple responses from the couple that suggest this is not at all what even happened.

The couple were in their seat with boarding pass. Someone else came up with the same seat assignment. Both (or all 3?) boarding passes were handed to the FA who walked away. Suddenly the FA comes back and says "you do not have a boarding pass for this seat" to which the couple replies "yes we gave it to you" and then some sort of argument ensues. The 21C 2 pax seems to have then voluntarily taken some other seat, at which point the FA tells the couple she is removing them anyway for refusing to move seats and heads to the front where she is talking with the GA. At this point the couple is suddenly handed the missing BP showing 21C - from the pax in 23C. The wife takes it up front to give to the FA and GA and another argument ensues.

It's a big mess, and there's a lot of unknown behind "tone" and such of each actor and what was said during the two arguments. Only other pax and/or video could shed light on that IMO. It might be a 50 to 1 ratio of Bad PAx::FA powertrip but with 4,900 UA flights per day, there's multiple "1s" occurring each year. Every so often, the roulette wheel hits on 0.

zombietooth

It doesn't matter what actually happened, it matters how the FA perceived it. This is the same situation with sexual harassment these days; you should never touch anybody unless you know the person very well. Also, you'll note that I said you shouldn't argue with a FA either. There was no de-escalation here by either party and, in the end, the FA is always going to win. Being right doesn't get you anything.

eng3

EXACTLY !!! ^

Such a simple issue that occurs and get resolved multiple times daily. Makes me wonder why this specific time became a newsworthy event.

The constant references to Dao aren't really relevant either. No UA FA was involved in that incident.
But whether it be IDB or seat assignment changes, although rare, these are all things that have existed for decades. I'm not sure why it is suddenly a problem for the general public to accept now.

jsloan

I agree; it's more common for GAs to handle this. However, the FAs have the ability to do it, and I've seen them do so.

And, no, "whoever got here first" doesn't make the most sense if one set of boarding passes is out-of-date.

Yes, that's what's been presented, but does it make any sense? Is it in line with your expectations of how people behave? The only reason I've ever seen a FA walk away from a boarding pass conflict is to get the GA, and that was more common in the days before the mobile flight manifest. (When they used a paper manifest, the FA would go to the GA to ensure they were using an up-to-date copy).

Of all the people on the plane, the FAs are best-equipped to know that possession of a boarding pass is irrelevant. They are carrying the (mobile) flight manifest in their hands. All they need is a passenger's last name (or sequence number, which is printed on the boarding pass) in order to find the correct seat assignment.

I have asked, several times, what seat the FA told the couple to sit in. The question has been ducked repeatedly. I am forced to assume that there is a missing step: the FA looked at the manifest, resolved the differences, told the couple to move, and that's when things began to escalate. Presumably, there was an argument that involved "I gave you the boarding pass to show that we're in the correct seat," and then the FA replying "No, you didn't," or whatnot. This isn't the only possible scenario, but it seems the most plausible to me.

I wouldn't say that it happens quite frequently, but it does happen, and with no obvious reason. I've been moved out of an exit row to another E+ seat within about an hour of boarding; I only noticed it because I was looking at the seat map, saw my seat come open, and thought I'd been upgraded. I hadn't.

I don't know what "most people" would have done. In that particular instance, I just changed my seat back. But demanding a reason from the person who is least likely to have made the change seems pointless.

I agree, although the passengers appear to think that the FAs were trying to get them deplaned even after the situation resolved itself, so it may actually have been too late at that point.

ContinentalFan

I agree wholeheartedly, but from what I can tell from the story, he wasn’t wearing his academic gown, while the United employees were all uniformed. He has to share some of the blame.

cerealmarketer

Forbes article sequence of events was...

FA takes boarding pass
Later boarding passenger reseated
BP recovered, FA tapped
Threatened to kick off plane

Was that incorrect, and instead should be:

FA takes boarding pass
Threatened to kick off plane
Later boarding passenger reseated
BP recovered, FA tapped
Threatened to kick off plane again

What I'm trying to understand - was there a threat to kick you off the plane before the pax was reseated?

Independent of that the whole passenger council process is eye opening - maybe overly employee friendly as a function of union demands.