prestonh

It is likely that BE fares are dynamic inasmuch as the other fare classes (including the one you might have booked). Blocking one would have to have knowledge of the others. Not really possible in a dynamic environment.

nycflyer222

The issue related to this thread is that the BE passengers sitting in E+ are causing logistical problems, and UA does not appear to care about it. Are NRSA’s allowed to ask passengers to trade seats?

LarryJ

No.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

There isn't a specific # of BE tickets. The number is dynamic throughout the 11 months seats are available.

UA is not going to reserve a certain amount of tickets/seats for BE inventory that could negate the sale of a regular coach ticket - that's not the way airlines work. That last thing UA wants to do (and does not do) is say: "Gee, we're out of regular coach tickets, only BE is available".

UA doesn't "block" seats for BE.

Purchase of the coach seat comes with certain certainties/benefits. BE gives people a good price w/ lesser benefits and certainties. Your basically just arguing to get rid of BE. and just split the cabin into E+ E- front, E- back and reduce UA's ability to (flexibly) manage revenue.

ContinentalFan

It’s my understanding that they’re not. At least, there have been a few times that a passenger has asked me to trade seats and called an FA over to join the conversation. Once I point out that the passenger is an NRSA, the conversation comes to an abrupt halt and the FA takes the person aside, presumably to explain that they’re playing Russian roulette with travel privileges.

Kacee

UA's not going to do anything, since they view full economy cabins as a desired outcome, not a problem. They also view selling tickets that don't include a seat assignment as a revenue opportunity, which is a big part of why this "problem" exists.

You've already identified the solution, which is don't fly UA in economy. (Although I'm not sure AA is any better on this score, and WN by definition is actually worse.)

prestonh

How many BE pax on how many flights you were on had to be escorted off the flight because they would not take their assigned seats when asked?

evol

This is the truth, period. We're just complaining about it and remembering better days.. Isn't that what we do here?
Those who cannot for the life of them comprehend what weʻre even discussing or why is beyond me. The amount of pure junk-posting..

May as well close this thread, no longer a productive conversation.

prestonh

It is also a head scratcher when seasoned ual elite flyers don't understand that the seat next to them isn't theirs it's UA's. Even the seat you are assigned is subject to change. To understand otherwise would have to accept a version of reality that does not exist. I do recall 1K seatblocking as a 1K but it no longer exists. It no longer exists because the planes are full. Not sure what else to say. I guess have a hard time accepting changes? That's acceptable.

drewguy

BE pax create logistical problems wherever they're seated because they're not guaranteed to sit together. What you want is to make BE pax the problem of E- pax instead of E+ pax - I get the sentiment, but logistically the only way to do that once E- seats are full is to move E- pax to E+ and use those now open seats for the BE pax who are logistical problems. That hardly seems like an efficient, sensible process because now you're creating logistical problems for E- pax who might be happier sitting together, as they selected when booking, than separated in E+. How do you suggest the GAs handle that - ask each E- pax "hey, would you like an E+ middle instead of your E- seat?"

Unless E- has empty seats, seating BE pax in E+ should be a non-issue. They bought a seat and they get what's left - so long as UA is filling E- before E+ I think they've done what they can.

Kacee

I was with you until I got to the bolded sentence. There is absolutely no logical connection between these two points. UA ceased seat blocking for elites years ago, when loads were in the 70-80% range, and continued not to block seats throughout the pandemic, when aircraft were often flying empty. Historically, load factors range between 70-80% and there is no reason to believe they will not revert to that norm when the current imbalance between supply and demand has been normalized. Moreover, even today, flights do go out with empty seats.

Obviously, if an aircraft is booked full, seatblocking is irrelevant. But in those situations where the flight is not full, it would be a meaningful benefit, just one of the many that UA has pulled away.

prestonh

How will a benefit work or be of value if it is not realizing in a meaningful way? Not sure what the answer is. Load factors are based on rpms so would not factor awards and positive space travel. The pandemic would have been useful obviously. With full flights going forward? And then the complaints to customer service that the seats aren't being blocked....

Kevin AA

Seat blocking next to 1K's would imperil the ability of E- passengers traveling in a group of two to be able to purchase E+ seats together at check-in. Blocking the middle seat next to a sole passenger in a row of three means there is only one open seat on the seat map in that row.

UA needs to be able to sell E+ seat assignments to non-status passengers. They don't hate 1K's; they have to do this in order to operate in today's business climate.

rkaradi

I’m sure this is true, but having a hard time believing it. I think about so may things like going to the bathroom, needing help eating and most importantly the parent having no care about the safety of their child sitting by themselves on a 12+ hour flight next to a complete stranger. No offense OP. Plus the liability and responsibility the airline would take regarding this.

Lux Flyer

Ok, your post specifically called out standbys in multiple places, which is why myself and others responded in reference to standby assignments. A BE seat request is not a standby, as I'm sure you know, they hold a confirmed seat.

Assuming once again, you mean BE seat requests and not standbys, because the standby clearance process is run as an automated process. Yes the gate agent can manually trigger it, or override it by manually unseating someone and clearing someone else. But again, the majority of the time standby clearance is an automated process than runs at D-30 for domestic flights. Just before boarding completes/close out they unseat the no shows and can then clear anyone else off standby manually based on priority.

Regarding BE seat assignments. This is again mostly automated. The system will attempt to assign BE passengers into E- seats. If there are no E- seats available to assign into, then it will force a seat request at the gate so the gate agent can manually assign the seat, which again is going to be E+ at that point since no E- were available for automatic assignment. The issue of E- going out empty with BE passengers in E+ still - I think we underestimate how often people either no show or misconnect. If that person who missed their flight had a held E- seat, it wasn't available for assignment to a BE passenger when the gate agent needs to be getting BE seats assigned, the E- seat isn't available until the missing passenger gets unseated at D-10. So to solve the problem of not sitting BE in E+ when there are open E- seats, you either are waiting to give them seat assignments to D-10, or you're reseating them from E+ to E- at D-10, both of which are going to cause far worse problems with on time performance than the airlines are already facing. And as others have also pointed out, BE passengers can purchase E+ beginning at check in, so not every BE passenger sitting in E+ gets it for free.

And would be entirely incorrect assumption to make, as has been pointed out by others. Most UA NRSA have to pay taxes to fly in domestic J, so the majority won't list for J. So looking for the overlap between the two to determine who is a standby is a futile effort. Much like UA has a separate internal upgrade list they can view that differs from the public one at the airport/app, there is also a separate internal standby list that gives employees a ton more information about where/why they have a specific position on the standby list compared to what you would be seeing in the app/airport. This lets them make educated decisions about what flights they want to try to standby for, and since I know people on this forum will say they should be able to see that (I know I would love access to that info when flying), no that information is never going to be made public because it contains things like board totals, seats sold/authorized, misconnects, and other various internal priority information that is used to determine placement on the list.

Again, because it is a money losing policy. Unless as a 1k/GS member you are sitting in a non-preferred E- seat (and if a 1k/GS member is sitting in one of those seats, chances are that flight is full anyways and this is a moot point), the seat next to you has incremental revenue associated with it, as they can sell it for either a preferred zone or E+ fee. If they block that seat from assignment they are blocking themselves from being able to collect that incremental revenue from another passenger. As much as we like to think our individual spending as a 1K or GS is a sizeable chunk of UA's revenue, it is a drop in the bucket for an airline that is flying 400k people per day. I can guarantee that UA, makes more incremental revenue in a single day from seat assignment fees, than an entire years worth of individual 1k/GS spend whose business they lose because they aren't blocking the middle seat next to them.