geckoflyer

so I'm sitting in Philly waiting for my delayed Philly to Tampa flight on an A321. About 30 mins prior to scheduled departure the gate agent announces a weight and balance issue and asks all customers in the first few rows (i don't remember how many...maybe 5-10) to go to the podium for new seat assignments in the back of the plane.

Now up until the end of February I was ua prem exec (*g). Now I'm premier but my bp (on ac card stock) shows *g. No issue so far. So I walk up to the podium and ask if any F seats are left. Continuing on to say that I'd be happy to pay the upgrade fee (been a long day). So the agent goes on to say that with the new computer system she cant take my money but as a service she'd put me in first. I'm onboard in 1C and happy right now.

So my question...I haven't flown US in a while. Can they really not process UA premier+ upgrades with the new computer system? She specifically stated this and said she hates the new "cheap" computer system. Oh how happy I am with UA!

apologies in advance as I posted on my iPhone quickly. Thanks (as always) -chris

PHL

She should have been able to sell you a GoFirst upgrade for about $100 for PHL-TPA. These are available in $50 increments (per 500 miles) to anyone, but particularly useful for non-elite members once the elite upgrades have been exhausted.

It sounds more like she hasn't done many, and therefore can't navigate the arcane, unintuitive, nonfriendly interfaces they have to work with.

Am I the only one scratching their head that an A321 had a W&B issue requiring people to move to the back on a 900 mile flight?? That would never happen on a 757......

micfly

It may have been pretty empty and needed to move passengers if all were booked in the forward part of the plane...prob why the OP was easily upgraded.

HereAndThereSC

That's likely what happened. I don't know of that many US flights that leave with empty F seats!

JP

CIT85

I have never heard of W&B on any major commercial jets, let alone a larger one like the A-321. Besides, why would they upgrade someone to F for free if they wanted passengers to move to the back?

I doubt an UA gate agent would ever upgrade an US elite for free.

dagwood

I have been upgraded several times by UA and E was not even oversold. It happens. You just have to be nice...

fone

W&B should always be an issue for any flight, even commercial flight. With a badly balanced flight, they might have to use more fuel for correcting the pitch of the aircraft.

I had once taken a 'chartered' SQ flight for overseas training by the Singapore army, and since it is 'chartered' the army captains get to decide where we seat and he asked all the trainees to move all the way to the back of the plane. In the end he was overwritten by the captain of the plane and we had to spread out more evenly which would be for W&B issues as the rest of the plane was empty, except for the few officers in first / business class.

aztimm

I've experienced W&B issues several times in the past few months....PHX-RNO, and PIT-PHL (twice) come to mind immediately, maybe more. All of those were on 737's. Thankfully I was in F on all of them, and they didn't touch any F seats, but caused confusion for nearly all Y pax.

One of my most unusual W&B flights was MTY-TRC, there was no FA, and the pilot hardly spoke English. My Mom and I saw the pilot come back, took a few minutes before we understood he wanted us to move. It was a very small plane, a kid got sick and smelled up the whole cabin, there was no a/c and it was extremely warm, we were very thankful by the time we landed.

USPhilly

I just had a W&B issue on a 321 LAX-PHL Tuesday night. I was the only pax in 10ABC due to, according to 1 very irritated pax, W&B. Apparently the GA told him they couldn't assign him a seat in 10 due to W&B. There was also only 1 person in 9DE. This certainly wasn't an empty flight but it wasn't full either.

warbo

Good that you would have been happy to pay to upgrade but why would you expect it for free? That only applies to Dividend Miles members.

cwpfly

I don't recall an A321 weight and balance issue coming up as a FT topic before the reconfiguration. Folks naturally want to sit more forward. Now that there are more seats forward, on a lightly booked flight, it would be more likely to cause an issue.

Another Tempe success story?