I was on IAD-ORD yesterday morning.

At the gate before boarding, GA annonced that she had many E+ seats open and anyone sitting in regular economy could pay $29.99 to sit in E+ if they were interested. Passengers who did not pay for E+ should not move to E+ seats even if the E+ seats were empty. I did not see anyone rushing to get those five extra inches.

After boarding, I sat in 1A, and saw a passenger came up to the FA asking if he could move to any seat in the first ten row (733)... it was pretty empty in E+. I heard FA said "no" but did not pay attention for the reasons given. Moments later, FA went on the PA system made a general annoucement about a passenger has inquiried about moving forward to E+. She went on the say that people sitting in E+ had paid for their seats ( she did not say about elite passengers are entitled to those seats), and in order to protect the integrity of the system, passengers should refrain themselves from moving up to empty E+ seats.

Good job to enforce the sitting rule!!^

I heard the same in-air announcement on one of my 6 mainline flights last week.

I wonder if UA should put in some type of informal cabin divider up--like European carriers do for euro "business" class.

Great to hear!^ I have heard this more and more recently. While it's not always exactly the same, they do mention something about it being a separate cabin and that those in it paid for it.

Great implementation of policy for the crew! Hopefully we will see this more in the future. E+ and FT rocks!

Unfortunately I had the opposite experience on UA294 this week. I was seated in 11C, an exit row and the last row of E+ on the A320. The person behind me was very unhappy about not having enough leg room, and decided to take it out on me by constantly bothering me. I was trying to sleep and he kept kicking my seat, waking me up and asking me to move my seat upright while he got in and out of the seat (seemingly every 10 minutes), and also just complaining loudly about how much his seat sucked.

Then he went to the people across the ailse for me, where 11E was unoccupied, and asked if he could sit there. Those pax were clearly not happy about the prospect of having him sit there, and so said "no, you're not really supposed to do that." Then the troublesome pax asked the FA if he could sit there, and she said yes, so he did. Even though it was an exit row, she didn't even ask him if he'd be willing to assist in the event of an emergency evacuation.

I can't complain too much because I was glad to get this guy further away from me, but I would have been pretty unhappy to have the FA seat someone unpleasant like that next to me, especially when I previously had an empty seat there.

And even more so if you paid for access to this section, which makes it imperative for UA to be strict about this during appropriate situations.

These seats could only be maintained by generating revenue.

Possible, but IME they can't get the F divider right.... so why even bother with E-/E+.

Also ^^to the GA & FA for setting the "tone" early.... and second for enforcing the "tone".

I was thinking Babu meant something like those little velcro things they stick on the top of top of the headrests on SAS (and others I guess) -- even UA might be able to figure out where to put those!

Agreed. IME most flights the FAs have been pretty diligent about making sure to announce one cannot move from E- to E+. However, on a recent Ted flight I had the whole exit row to myself but halfway through the flight someone came up from E- and took the window.

Earlier this week I flew OAK-DEN in F. As soon as the flight attendants were able to start the service the attendant in F went back and closed the curtain. Yes, there was actually a curtain there, and it was closed until it was time to begin the descent into DEN.

So change may be afoot!

^ Great job by the FA's

Good job! I used to fly UA a lot many years ago, and I already noticed that. The FAs enforced the rules about who sitting up front and also making sure my adjacent seat is blocked.

In my pre-frequent flier days I had the wonderful experience of sitting in the first E- seat behind a fully reclined exit row passenger. Since I'm a POVS (person of vertical size), I literally could not even squirm without jostling the person in front of me. To this day, I will not prebook the last exit row on longer flights where I might want to recline my seat. Despite all your sense of 'entitlement', there is a real human being in that seat who deserves some level of the same comfort we all seek.

Some more good enforcement of the E+ cabin last night's LAX-IAD redeye by a bloody good GA ^

Made sure all those on the Red Carpet got to get on first. ^
Fended of the Seating group 2s and up when it seating area was called ^
Came onboard the aircraft to note that E+ was rather empty and that if you were in row 17 or behind that you cannot move into E+ and to buyup next time you fly. ^

E+ was surprisingly empty (F was full and E- pretty chocka) but E+ had maybe 30% occupancy. Between all the exit row seats on the 757 there were 2 people seated in them! I guess the non-movable armrests didn't win many fans looking to spread out.

But it isn't a proper curtain? I've only ever seen the meshy curtains. It does the job to some extent but it isn't like those used by Euro/Asian carriers have. I presumed it was some FAA reg that the curtain can't be opaque.