percysmith

1. Does UA auto-assign seats to certain passengers? As noted above, it's not a rational choice (game-theory wise)

2. Re passing food around and talking: if I and the middle ended up in window-aisle and someone else in the middle, I'd let the person pick window or aisle. If he refuses (his prerogative), then the rules about not passing stuff and taking around the middle don't apply.

emcampbe

re, 1, yes, I’ve definitely had UA auto-assign seats, including this past week. Booked an itin with me an 2 others where on the outbound, a CVG-DEN flight on a 320 had only a couple of scattered single seats left (aside from E+, which was like 80% empty), and the return has a SFO-IAD on a 777, which only had middles left. Because of the seating situation, I declined to select seats on these legs. Within 24 hours, I noticed UA had auto-assigned us to 50E and 51EF on IAD-SFO (middles in the middle section of 4). Later, a couple of days prior to departure, was put in row 25 on CVG-DEN - I think one of the aisle/windows was occupied, but one must have freed up, and the middle, 25E, was showing blocked, so the compute must have put us in there.

im not sure though, unless the pax is gold or higher, that they would auto-assign into E+ before checkin, and even at that, why the computer wouldn’t put them in an aisle or window given there were many available in rows around OP.

geo979

I don't think you are being dense. I don't believe the person selecting that middle seat is a sly genius. As you point out, they would be wiser to select the middle seat in the empty row.

garykung

You would be surprised how many people on a flight do make irrational, i.e. stupid, choices.

Speaking of my experience, I had once flown on UA 869. The flight was not fully, so everyone could seat comfortably. I was supposed to get the whole row. But someone there was a NRSA old couple, for unknown reasons, picked the rest of the seat on my row, effectively filling up the whole row.

I was forced to switch seats. Even the GA was apologetic.

zombietooth

Many years ago, on an old 2-5-2 config, my wife had one end of the center section and I had the other. There were at least 10 other center sections empty or with only person in them, yet a family of 3 boarded late and sat between my wife and I! I asked the FA if we could move and went to another completely empty center section and enjoyed our "Ghetto" biz seats.

I think that some people are just oblivious to the obvious.

fumje

It could be an sly genius. The row in front is empty.
When some rows are empty and others have aisle/window, it's not a bad bet to guess that those occupied ones are companions. If someone wants to push the companions forward, and increase their own chances of an empty row (because late assignments tend to go front to back), this could work.

jhayes_1780

Wild speculation: But when people buy E+ seats I thought I remember the pricing has become dynamic....

Middles are cheaper, as you move to the front (E+ & preferred get more expensive), etc....

Does the price get lower to select middles that have occupied seats on each side?

emcampbe

Don’t believe so. When I’ve always seen seat prices, aisles/windows are usually one price throughout the cabin, and middles a few $ cheaper. The only variations I’ve seen with bulkhead/exit (more expensive) and restricted recline (less expensive). And PP seats on domestic runs they’re not selling as a separate cabin (and doesn’t even seem to be that much more - an aisle PP seat was running at I think $12 more than another regular E+ aisle on a recent SFO-IAD I was looking at).

Long Zhiren

UA did that for me two months ago. They blocked the _two_seats_ next to me and I got an entire row to myself. I even switched seats to avoid being in a crowded row. But on boarding, the gate agent asked me "Can I put you back in that row? _I_ blocked those two seats so you could have the entire row to yourself." I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I had no idea that I could get so lucky. I slept flat, with knees bent, for the15 hour flight.

There are other flights that "look" empty like that and suddenly get packed to the gills in the hours before the flight, especially when there are a lot of passengers who get automatic seat assignments and piles of standy-by passengers.

dm6214

Every one is blasting the person in the middle seat. If you didn't want someone in between you and your traveling companion don't take a isle and window hoping you get empty seat between you. Otherwise suck it up and enjoy talking around the middle person. If I were that person I would be leaning forward and back just to irritate you.

Silver Fox

You might want to do yourself a favour and read the questions they ask and not jump to conclusions.

rmadisonwi

But none of that makes more sense than just grabbing the empty row for yourself to begin with.

narvik

That sounds like a very negative & needless effort for such a long flight.
I prefer spending my time on the plane as peaceful as possible.

ContinentalFan

hmmm ... that sounds normal.

emcampbe

This. I've done the aisle/window thing when I was traveling with just my wife, and worked out well all of the time. When there was someone who ended up in the middle - not all the time, but has happened for sure, and almost always last minute - as in seats given out by GA after boarding, - we switched and the guy in the middle never had an issue.

Flying on my own, I've never thought about selecting a middle in an empty row - I suppose there is a chance that it convinces others to select other rows if available, but especially with full flights these days, there's a better than good chance that both aisle and window is selected, and well, you end up in a middle. In this case, there's no rationale I can think of to select the middle in an otherwise full row - better to pick the middle in the already empty row if you want to go that route. Personally, when traveling alone, I try to select an aisle toward the back of E+, where the seats around me are less likely to be filled than those forward in E+ unless those rows are already full, as particularly last minute, GAs usually assign seats from front to back (and in E- first in the case of travelers that don't have access to E+ by default). That has been successful in getting an empty row, or with just the window seat occupied, and other times, the row gets filled anyway since the aircraft is mostly full anyway. Either way is fine, just try to get the bsest chance at empty seats next to me...if not, no big deal..