Quite likely. The vast majority of all the E+ poaching I have observed on intl. flights was committed by FAs :( doing random favours to 'people who would be crammed back there'.
Sometimes it took a lot of protest from us to prevent them from filling middle seats in E+ with their minions.

But I understand UA management now taught them much better that this is not the way to do it :cool:.

Certainly that was my recent experience on lhr-sfo-mel return. Lots of announcements during boarding about E- not moving to E+ and ability to upgrade before boarding next time. I didn't notice any poachers (and managed to keep my empty row of 4 on the SFO-SYD leg :)

I'll assume that you are male and that the would be poacher is a drop dead gorgeous young woman, is it a little less irritating then? If you are in A and your wife is in C when this knockout says, "Man I hope you don't mind...." is the dynamic different then? Might you come away from such an experience saying, "Poaching is not always bad."? Now, if person sitting in E+ is female and the would be poach a very handsome, well-dressed fellow, would it be the same? And with husband in C, woman in A, what dynamic when poacher asks for B?

Moving to an empty middle seat is always bad manners unless invited by both people. I would never even consider asking. If there was something wrong with my original seat I would let the FAs handle the situation.

If I'm single AND in the mood to find someone then it is less irritating else every bit as irritating.

And, for making up rules and trying to pass them off as company policy. Who do they think they're fooling?

Yup, if I worked for UA, I'd not be lifted up by many of the postings. Alas....

I don't think they can take credit cards. I remember once, at least, the FA's saying something to the extent of, E+ is for paying pax, and you are welcome to pay to upgrade on your next UA flight. On another, they didn't mention the next UA flight, so it might have been early enough that they were willing to take a pax out to the GA to have it charged there

They used to have them on at least some domestic mainline flights (never seen them on UX). Don't know about 737's either, but I'm sure I've seen them on at least some of the Airbus fleet, as well as 757's. Though I haven't seen them recently. Is it possible they used to have them, and then took them out? Or have them on a few aircraft, but not on others?

Whatever you want to call that, I don't think that would be a problem, at least according to most on this board. The problem with poaching as we talk about it here is the fact that people are taking seats that they are not entitled to because they haven't earned it/paid for it. I don't think there is a pax in the world who would think they would be able to move to a C/F seat if they were booked in E-, or even E+ - its the same basic principal. You can only sit in the cabin you paid for/are entitled to. Certainly, someone moving from E+ to E- (though I haven't heard too many stories of this) would be ok. By buying a seat on that flight, anyone is entitled to E-. With no one in the row, its also not like someone would be complaining that you are overtaking "their" space.

The original A/C was scheduled to be a 319, and got upped to a 320. There was in fact an extra exit row. Whatever happened - the three who sat down in row 10 clearly didn't have row 10 BP's - the guy who had 10A sat in an empty 9D, and the guy who had 10C sat in an empty 9A. Both didn't seem to mind. Those that were poaching row 10 got on the aircraft pretty early (maybe the GA's weren't checking group #'s - I'm not sure), certainly earlier than the two that were supposed to be in row 10. They didn't appear to be frequent flyers, and maybe even didn't realize that someone had to be seated in that exit row (in case of emerg.).

It's on the actual aircraft when I have problems with people poaching - next time, I should tell the FA's that they shouldn't be seated in E+ at all if they aren't entitled (it was pretty late in boarding at that point - maybe the FA's were just trying to make sure the flight left the gate on time). At $14 (I think), per seat, that's $42 in UA lost revenue. If 3 short haul E+ seats get poached everyday of the year (clearly, based on the FT boards, an understatement), then that would be $15,330 in lost revenue to UA in a year. That's based on the cheapest possible UA upgrades, if we're talking about the $89 IAD-ZRH upgrades, 3 seats = almost $97,500/year.

Are you a drop dead gorgeous young woman? If you are, then I think you might get those invitations to sit in the middle seat, though that is not the one that was assigned to you. If you are not, then it isn't so surprising that you don't get them.:D

I've experienced a couple of exit row shenanigans this week and was thinking about this very topic.

On Wednesday, I was flying SJC-DEN exit row window seat with the aisle and middle both empty. After the door closes, a woman in the middle seat in the E- row behind actually pushed her way out of the row (forcing the aisle sitter to get up) and attempted to poach the empty aisle exit seat. A FA just happened to come by at the moment and scolded her back to her original seat. I could hear her grumbling behind me afterwards.

I've seen many opportunistic seat swappers before and usually I don't mind as long as there's an empty seat left between us, but this woman was the boldest attempt I've ever seen. I was glad the FA came along when she did to thwart her.

The second experience was Friday flying SLC-DEN. I was originally confirmed exit row window but there was an equipment change and I was bumped back one row into E-. Fortunately when I checked in the exit aisle seat was still open so I was able to grab that. A teenager sat down in seat A (this was on a 737 that has the one missing window seat so seat A is the premium spot). She guiltily admitted that she was surprised to have gotten assigned that seat since she wasn't even a M+ member.

When a couple came on board filling both middle seats in the row, the teenager, to everyone's surprise voluntarily offered to swap seats with the largish husband scrunched in the middle seat across the aisle. I have to admit that I've never seen anyone do that before. But I was also a bit annoyed since that was supposed to have been my original seat.

Turns out the couple were non-revving standby fliers whose son is a new pilot for UX so they were enjoying his newly obtained employment benefits. Not sure how that works but I didn't think that non-revs were allowed E+ seating.

Non-revs get whatever seats they are assigned. Might even be in J or F. I dont ssee why you were upset with the teenager - she didnt choose to take your seat - and I think it was incredibly nice of her to swap

I wasn't upset with her at all. As you said, it was incredibly nice of her and something to admire in the younger generation. I just thought it was interesting considering she wasn't even a M+ and got E+ and exit row to boot.

I was only mildly annoyed at UA that I got bumped out of the seat in the first place. They swaped a 733-1 for a 733-2 and my original 11A seat didn't get automatically reassigned to E+. If I hadn't been able to change seats and got stuck in E- then I would have been more than just a little annoyed.

To me the most interesting bit of that story is that she knew enough to be surprised about getting that seat based on not being an M+ member. I'd assume most non-members would be oblivious. Presumably she's either a frequent traveler or a well-tuned-in wanna-be who normally flies on other airline(s).

On some flights, I avoid exit rows and just take E+ aisles, as the exit rows are more likely IME to be full vs. having a blocked middle in regular E+.

During the announcements about E+, exit rows, etc., I've heard several FAs/pursers recently say things like, "For those lucky passengers in the exit rows..." I'd prefer they say, "For those customers loyal enough to fly at least 50,000 miles a year and who are seated in our exit rows..." :D It's not about luck, after all!

My attitude is laissez faire. I paid for a seat whether it be e+, E-, First, whatever. As long as I get that seat, I'm good.

Would I like the whole row to myself? Of course, but the only way to guarantee that is to buy the whole row.

So if someone poaches the seat next to me and gets away with it, so be it.

Someone posted that it would be okay if you had E+ but decided to move back to E-. Well, if you were sitting in that row in E-, you might have a different opinion.

Human psychology is interesting. If you know it's a full flight, you accept that every seat will be taken and even if people are jumping all around, in the end, every seat will be taken. Such is life.

But if you know that the flight is half-empty, your primal instinct for territoriality kicks in and you start to feel you "own" the empty seat next to you.

I guess for me life is too short to be the poaching cop or the bathroom cop when someone from the cattle hold uses the first class restroom or the meal cop when you feel that someone jumped the line in getting the meal preference and so on.