Tag Archives for seats.
Once the plane takes off, and the middle seat in your row remains empty, does it now belong to you for the rest of the flight? That’s the question that a passenger wanted to know after a recent trip where they were called nasty names for trying to protect the space.
One of the better tricks to flying comfortably is when there are cheap tickets, just buy two. You often need to work with the airline (don’t just buy an extra seat in your own name, the airline might think it’s a duplicate). But you can usually buy more than one seat and sit in both. That’s more space for a lot less money than paying for business or first class.
A United Airlines passenger had a flight attendant kicked them out of their seat because another passenger had taken it, and the crewmember felt that woman deserved it more than they did.
When they arrived at their seat, in the second row from the back of the aircraft, they found a woman and two kids seated in the row. They offered, “I have the window seat, does your ticket say you also have my seat?”
People seem to get confused over whether they use the space under the seat in front of them, under their own seat, or both.
The man took the other aisle seat, the dad took the main’s aisle next to the kids. And… another passenger comes on board assigned to the aisle seat he’d moved to. It turns out the dad had the middle seat and lied to the man in order to get him to switch. The dad traded something he did not have in the first place.
Last week a passenger flew American Airlines from Miami to Atlanta. When they boarded flight 2290 on Friday they were told by a flight attendant that someone had urinated in seat 15C on the 12-year old Boeing 737.
An American Airlines passenger flying from Charlotte to Munich purchased a business class ticket that they say cost them $4,600. Once they boarded they discovered that their seat did not move. It did not recline. It did not turn into a bed. It was just a seat – not the thing they had purchased.
One of the more shocking things – beyond dirty seats – has been missing seat backs in first class, with seats taken out of service. The response from the airline (and some readers) has been that it’s better to fly planes in this condition than delay flights to address the problem. But I’ve always wondered, what are they doing when the planes aren’t flying to maintain the interiors so that this doesn’t happen so frequently?
Southwest Airlines reported a loss of $231 million for the first quarter, and they’ve shared a number of actions that they’re taking to turn around their financial performance. During their earnings call they highlighted several measures they’re taking but one in particular will change what it means to fly Southwest.
Within the confines of what American Airlines is going to be willing to do – space on the aircraft comes at an incredible premium, so I while I wish the space for midflight snacks was larger I accept certain tradeoffs – they’ve clearly gone much further in working on the details of this product.
Of course I haven’t seen it in person yet. The first plane hasn’t been delivered, and we’re a couple of months until the first Boeing 777-300ER goes in for retrofit to create a model for future work. But the imagery that’s coming out is exceeding my expectations.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
