Woman And Child Flew Six Hours In Cockpit Jumpseats — Airline Avoided Paying Overbooking Compensation

Two passengers flew in the cockpit jumpseats on an overbooked six hour flight, and that’s led to some embarassment but not to any regulatory investigation.

On 21 February 2026, Transavia flight HV6134 from Hurghada, Egypt to Amsterdam was reportedly oversold and the pilot of the Airbus A321neo announced that the airline was looking for two volunteers to sit in the cockpit on the Air France KLM low cost subsidiary.

A passenger says that about 10 people stepped forward, and that a woman and a girl of perhaps 10 years old were chosen. They boarded before the rest of the passengers and spent the duration of the flight on cockpit jumpseats behind the pilots.

Credit: Transavia

Transavia has confirmed only that it is conducting an internal investigation. Its public position is:

• Its policy on jumpseat use and cockpit access is in line with European Union Aviation Safety Agency rules
  
• The captain is ultimately responsible for onboard safety
  
• The captain has discretionary authority within those rules.

The Dutch aviation authority says it is not running any investigation, but did tell Transavia this was an “undesirable” policy for passengers to be in the cockpit and reports that the airline is changing that policy.

A passenger seated in 2C posted video of entry into the cockpit and says they reported the incident to Transavia and to regulators.

Transavia pilot requests 2 passenger volunteers to fly in cockpit to address overbooking issue – no troll.
by
u/Able-Indication-8620 in
KLM

Under EASA CAT.GEN.MPA.135, no one other than assigned flight crew may be admitted to or carried in the cockpit unless they’re an authority representative, or is “permitted by and carried in accordance with instructions contained in the operations manual.” The person’s presence cannot cause a distraction, and everyone in the cockpit has to be familiar with relevant safety procedures.

• So the operations manual governs here – if Transavia’s didn’t authorize putting oversale passengers in cockpit jumpseats, then it’s an EASA rules violation.

• It the manual does authorize it, then they had an absurdly permissive policy (that sounds like it is changing).

Regulation (EC) No 300/2008 Annex 10.1(a) says that unauthorised persons shall be prevented from entering the cockpit during a flight. But that falls back on whether or not the passengers were authorised under Transavia’s approved procedures – so there’s only a violation here if there’s also an earlier violation.

Even if the operations manual allowed the passengers, the captain still had to ensure there was no distraction or interference and that both people were familiarized with the safety procedures. There may not be any violation here, but it’s certainly not a best safety practice.

Normally when an airline sells more tickets than they have seats, they call for volunteers to accept compensation and a different flight. And if there aren’t enough volunteers, they involuntarily deny boarding and provide those passengers with compensation and alternate transportation. What the low cost carrier did instead is cheaper, but highly unusual. If no rule was broken here, it’s only because the rules didn’t properly account for this and that’s embarassing.

Credit: Transavia

Delta actually once left the gate with more passengers than seats but realized it prior to takeoff and returned. Apparently prior to closing the boarding door there were two empty seats that were assigned to non-revenue standby passengers, although the passengers originally assigned to those seats were actually on the aircraft, probably in the lavatory.

Pakistan International Airlines boarded 416 passengers on a Boeing 777 with 409 seats for the 1700 mile flight from Karachi to Medina. The extra passengers stood in the aisle. It turns out the captain says he only learned about the situation after takeoff, and the airline didn’t want to dump fuel to land back in Pakistan so they just continued on.

And a TUI flight operated from Mahon, Spain to Birmingham, UK with seat assignments that didn’t exist for three passengers due to an aircraft swap. The plane carried fewer passengers than planned. Nobody was denied boarding. Instead the family sat on the floor throughout the flight, while using jumpseats for takeoff and landing.

Pilots also do sometimes let people into the cockpit that they shouldn’t, like these two who decided to fulfill a 10-year old’s dreams of flying a plane and gave him the controls. Meanwhile, a Kuwait Airways pilot lost his license for letting a porn star play with his controls in the cockpit.