Bought airline seat to Celt, could t use it but it was taken anyway …

[agieselbow]

Genuinely, was I being unreasonable…

Flew home from abroad last night. Had bought my daughter a ticket but she needed to leave early. I decided to keep the ticket rather than sell on so I could have two seats: sleep etc. it was a late night flight and I had a three hour car commute thereafter.

just as plane was about to disembark , a man sat down beside me. I explained that he had the wrong seat . He simply said it was his in a rude tone.

The flight attendant saw this and hurried over to tell me that this man was’ actually a pilot’ and needed the seat. She further explained that he was off duty but a pilot nonetheless and again she was taking the seat.

she saw from my face that I was not happy and apologised as I explained , again, to both, that I intentionally held onto the seat knowing my daughter would t be travelling.
The man sighed/ tutted and was generally rude through the flight if I needed to go to the bathroom and in the end, he just got up and walked off the flight when we landed without even a thank you .
Am I being unreasonable to be very pissed off here???
I feel like emailing the airline and asking for a ticket refund.
I think that if he had been mannerly and pleasant, I wouldnt be so cross but the entitlement and obnoxious manner got my back up .
AIBU?

If what you are all saying is right how come very large people who ccannot comfortably fit into one seat are told to buy two?

You don't understand how flights work... you don't buy a ticket & if you don't turn up it stays an empty seat. Airlines always oversell tickets as ~10% of people don't turn up. And there's people / staff etc... who fly stand by who are always last on because they have to wait to see who doesn't turn up. YABU

?

The "how to do it: is usually on your chosen airline's website, but it usually involves booking by phone, rather than simply going on line.

But it was his seat, he was assigned it on check in!!!!

You're actually getting me worked up now with your ridiculousness.

You don’t buy a second ticket in someone else’s name, you get an extra space seat added to your single booking. So it won’t count as a “no-show” and won’t come up for reallocation. But even then I’ve heard of the second seat being given to someone on the standby list, especially if there’s been an earlier cancellation.

They overbook all flights on the balance of probability that there will be a certain amount of no shows. If more people show up than they predicted based on algorithms, they have to compensate them and find a way to get them home. Your daughter's seat was one of their predicted no-shows (eg. they predicted 5 people wouldn't show and 5 people didn't show, your daughter being one of them). Had she been there, she would have been put on standby, flown later and been compensated. But the balance of probability told them that she wouldn't be there iyswim.

If you really want the maximum chance to keep a second booked seat free you need to check the person in, collect their boarding pass, and scan both boarding passes at security to clear conformance on both tickets. Then they’ll be a no show at the gate which will probably be too late for the airline to do anything about it. But do that regularly and the airline will probably not look on it very favourably.

This puzzled me too. I think it was meant to be “ticket” and somehow got autocorrected to “to Celt”. It’s the kind of thing my phone likes to do for fun.

You can buy two tickets for yourself, but this is usually only allowed for very overweight passengers.

That ticket wasn’t yours. It was in your daughter’s name and she didn’t check in so the seat is reallocated. You can’t keep the seat because it wasn’t yours. Doesn’t matter who paid; all that matters is that the named passenger on the ticket didn’t check in so the seat is unused. You could have changed the name on the ticket to your name and checked in for two seats but you didn’t so it was not your seat.

You should have tried to see if your ticket was refundable or even changeable when your daughter needed another flight. But it’s probably too late to get a refund on that ticket. You’re not entitled to any sort of compensation for the seat being taken because it wasn’t your seat.

Have you never flown before?

I'm not sure I understand all of that, might be me being thick but:

"Had she been there, she would have been put on standby, flown later and been compensated."

If the daughter had been there she would have flown, the standby passenger would have been the one not to get on..

Tell me you have never flown before without telling me you have never flown before.......... 🤔

It happened to me on Eurostar.
Some trains were cancelled, delays etc. When I went through the barriers, I was told I no longer had a seat but to go see the train inspector on the platform.
There were a few of us and once everyone had boarded he took us through the train allocating empty seats.
When it was my turn, he showed me a seat on a table of 4. A man already sitting there told the inspector she can't sit here as I have a ticket for my mum who couldn't travel in the end.
The inspector was very impatient, and replied as your mum is a no show the seat is no longer yours.
I unfortunately had to spend the journey sitting next to a man who thought I shouldn't be there. He didn't consider that i also had booked and paid for a seat. I definitely didn't thank him !

Agree. Off duty pilots who are flying for free fly standby. Airlines won’t (normally) bump a fully paid passenger for off duty staff.

At flight close all seats that aren’t checked in to are back in the system!

The pilot was probabaly on staff travel and that’s why he was given the now empty seat as we don’t get seated until the last minute!

Depends on the airline and the deal but some places staff standbys can often cost more than a commerical ticket, especially in the off season on some routes.

The only advantage of them is they are flexible, - miss one flight you can try for the next with no penalty, but of course that is the downside, you might not get on.

Yes, this 👆

You want him to thank you?
😂😂😂😂😂😂

this is possibly the most entitled, hysterical thing I've read on Mumsnet.

Erm. It it was his. It was reallocated to him?😂

Oh dear! You would think in a scenario where there are cancellations and everyone is scrambling to get home, he would realise how selfish he was being hoarding a spare seat. I would like to think that when he got home and had a grumble, someone pointed that out to him!

Yep...and TBH having been in this sort of situation at least once and been confronted with "oh, but that seat should be spare.." it's sometimes best, especially as an employee, not to engage too much with the apparently aggrieved party.

airline staff are on 'standby' and take seats of no-shows. it's in the t&c.

She's explaining that airlines overbook seats and gave a scenario that if OP's dd showed up and didn't get a seat, she would be compensated.

In this situation it worked in the opposite way. OP's dd didn't show, so someone else who was on standby (a pilot for the airline) was given her seat.

Ok, I'm still struggling to read that specific post in that way,.must be me.., whatever, I do agree with your take on the basics of how it works.

I'm not expert but if I wanted 2 seats I assume I would need to buy 2 seats for me. Any seats I bought and had another's name against them would need transferred into my name at a cost or would be given to someone else as the named person didnt check in.... I would never assume it would be mine

Unfortunately airlines don't work like that
If you don't check in the seat is not longer yours
He had nothing to thank you for