You used to be able to take any open seat in your cabin once the doors closed. You might move closer to the front, grab an aisle seat, or head for an empty row in the back so you could stretch out.
As a kid I remember making a bee-line for an empty middle row on an American Airlines flight from Honolulu to Sydney, so I could lay down and sleep.
- Self-upgrading was never allowed. You couldn’t just move from economy to business class.
- Now, though, airlines charge for ‘premium’ seats in coach so they don’t usually let you go from regular coach to extra legroom seats for free, even if the seats are empty once the doors close.
- People might not pay if they knew they could take an extra legroom seat for free that was empty once everyone had boarded!
The norms have changed but passengers don’t always know this in advance, which makes for a stark clash of expectations. One United passenger was shocked to learn that nobody would be permitted to spread out into wide open seats on a recent flight … unless they had their “payment method handy.”
@united insisting people either pay for upgrades or stay packed in like sardines on flights with plenty of open seats is poor customer service. pic.twitter.com/MoRW9PD5US
— Ben Houg (@benhoug) November 25, 2024
They made an announcement saying “if you wanted to move seats, have your payment method handy.”
— Ben Houg (@benhoug) November 25, 2024
Years ago open seats were pretty much fair game. Now different airlines take different approaches. Southwest still has open seating, for a little while longer! And once you’re on the plane it’s Lord of the Flies complete with seat-saving and crumpled up tissues to keep people away from the middle seat they hope to save.
In the past, United has argued that passengers moving up to open seats with extra legroom is immoral; that it’s unfair to other passengers and it’s stealing from the airline.
The customers who choose to pay for Economy Plus are then afforded that extra space. If you were to purchase a Toyota, you would not be able to drive off with a Lexus, because it was empty. ^BA
— United Airlines (@united) September 7, 2019
But according to this logic United shouldn’t be able to sell cheap fares or offer MileagePlus awards because it is unfair to people that pay full fare? Of course passengers who buy Economy Plus get Economy Plus and are in no way harmed when other passengers get it free – via elite status, via luck of the draw or otherwise.
Sitting in an open seat that can never be sold (because the plane is already in the air) is not the same thing as taking a physical car off of a lot where it is waiting to be sold. In the former case United loses nothing, in the latter case the loss is real.
It seems strange to compare United slimline economy seats to a Lexus, although I once had a flight attendant compare Economy Plus to a Mercedes.
The better argument is: we do not allow passengers to move to better seats without paying extra (except under our own terms, for our operational convenience or elite perks) because that would encourage passengers to take a chance rather than paying on future trips. The actual reason: It’s not allowed because we don’t allow it, not because of some broader moral imperative. Their plane, their rules, and they can change the rules even after many decades of forming passenger expectations.
Changing to an open seat nobody else is using can’t be stealing because the airline hasn’t given up anything, and claiming it harms other passengers isn’t right either because other passengers still got exactly what they paid for. It is against the airline rules, not theft, but it is still not allowed if a flight attendant decides not to allow it.
“Extra legroom seats” nowadays generally come with service benefits, like free alcoholic drinks or enhanced snacks (Gary makes this same post every few months, but always ignores this key point – which I strange, because we all know he is aware of it). So while it is not the same as switching to an empty first class seat, the fact is that these seats do cost a premium, and airlines aren’t going to just give them away for free.
As someone who has to pay $100’s of dollars out of my own pocket to upgrade to more legroom every time I fly as my company does not pay for or reimburse for premium seats; I appreciate that the airline is enforcing this policy.
Can’t see this argument because you stated at the top that it is reasonable that people can’t just self-upgrade to biz class. Yes, the upgrade between regular economy and extra legroom economy is a pretty minor upgrade compared to the difference in upgrading to biz, but there _is_ a difference, and the argument that “The airline loses nothing once the plane takes off” could just as easily apply to a self-upgrade to biz. Particularly on a mostly empty biz cabin. Now, as it turns out, UA never has empty biz because of every Premier getting a free upgrade, but other airlines do.
However, if you do support “grab any extra legroom seat that’s free” it perhaps should only apply to truly empty rows. If I paid to sit up there and have an empty row, with the nice perk of looking out the window but also having aisle access, I’m not wanting somebody who didn’t pay to sit up there taking that away. And obviously you would not suggest that, if there’s an empty middle up front, that anybody can take that since it’s better than their packed middle in the back but seriously impinges on the comfort of the people who had that empty middle. (Some airlines sell empty middle rights, but UA does not.)
So it all gets pretty complex and I can see airlines wanting to increase the value of a set in the extra legroom section, and not wanting to deal with the hassles of people moving. (It also can require aircraft rebalancing if people move many rows.)
What about sitting in premium coach on AA international flight.
I had one seat next to 3 empty seats. I planned to take a nap. But some economy guy showed up and took the aisle seat.
Economy plus is not just another seat, it’s a separate class. You don’t get economy plus from ‘luck of the draw’. An upgrade because of status is also not free. You have to spend a lot of money to attain status. Status is not free.
@Gary, you’ve argued this before and are still wrong:
“. . . claiming it harms other passengers isn’t right either because other passengers still got exactly what they paid for.”
Taking a seat next to me, in front of me (and reclining), or behind me (and pushing your knees in my back) makes my flight worse. Yes, my premium area might be at capacity and I’d have those neighbors anyway. But, to me, part of the deal is if the only middle seat in a 2-3-2 PE (or Y+ on 767) section next to me was unsold, why should someone who paid for a Y middle seat be able to reduce my comfort (and the other person in that “3” section) just because it’s empty.? If a person assigned to that seat sat there and told me they upgraded to at check-in for $5, I’d congratulate them on snagging a bargain. By your logic, should the premium club (D1, Flagship, Polaris) let those only entitled to the “regular” in when the premium club is slow?
If they allowed people to move up to economy plus for free on a given flight, wouldn’t that deter those people from potentially upgrading to economy plus on a future flight (via actually paying for it)? There’s an opportunity cost that would be lost, because these people might buy regular economy again in the future, in “hopes” to just be able to make another mad dash at an open extra-legroom seat. I can definitely see why United doesn’t allow people to move for free. It could eat into future flight revenue. And besides, it gives the people who actually paid for economy plus a bad impression. If I knew I could get the seat for free onboard, I would feel pretty silly for paying full price before the flight…. It’s about protecting the value of the service that the actual paying passengers paid for.
You often say that people in the better seats “aren’t harmed” by someone who hasn’t paid grabbing a free upgrade. This is simply untrue.
When I pay that extra money, there is a greater chance that I will be adjacent to an empty seat, since fewer people are willing to pay for the upgrade. This is a huge benefit. Most of us love it when the seat next door is empty.
However, if airlines do not enforce policies against seat switching, then I will ALWAYS have someone next to me, since someone will always grab the free upgrade. So I go from maybe having an empty seat to never having one.
When I was in college some friends and I would sneak onto the local country club golf course to play for free. We figured nobody knows all the members anyway; we only chose times the course was uncrowded; we were polite to anyone we came into contact with; and didn’t put the members to any expense or deprive them of any income. All was fine until one day a member called the sheriff.
Clickbait
Just another reason flying is no longer enjoyable. Too many self entitled passengers trying to game the system.
Just sit in the seat you paid for, or stay home!
If some seat shifter is allowed to move into an empty seat by me, I do lose something. My comfort. I bothered to select my seat in advance and maybe paid extra for it. The seat shifter most likely bought the lowest class of fare possible that does not come with seat selection and that is why they are sitting in a middle seat in back. They deserve what they paid for. I have known people to move out of their own group’s row of three into some other row’s empty middle just to give his companions more comfort. Sit in your own assigned seat.
I usually pay for an upgrade to Economy Plus but I also reserve a window seat where at the time of reservation/seat selection, the other 2 seats beside me are empty. This gives me room to spread out and sometime even try to sleep laying down. If the strictly Economy passengers were freely allowed to switch seat after take-off then for sure some fat middle seat dude would come grab the aisle seat in my row or worse yet he and him screaming kid would take both seats for the extra legroom. I pay extra and select specific a specific seat and a free for after after the door closes is unfair to those of us who pay more and plan ahead.
It’s amazing, but certain people still can’t grasp the argument. Gary is absolutely correct, there’s no loss to the airline or to those people who may have paid for the comparable seat taken by those moving to an empty spot.