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?

Was your daughter checked in and issued a boarding pass on the return flight? If not, then the airline knew no one was using that seat. Especially as she wouldn't have been scanned as boarding the plane.
Also crew get special privileges if traveling for work (eg needing to return to base) and can get standby seats if not.
So I don't think you have much if a leg to stand on.

It will be in the ticket T&Cs that if the named passenger has not checked in / boarded at the gate they will be classed a no show and the seat will be reallocated. I.e. they have missed the flight. This is why airlines purposely overbook flights. The seat doesn’t ‘belong’ to the person who booked it.

Annoying if you were expecting to use it I suppose. But the pilot was probably just trying to get home too and would have been baffled by the situation.

some airlines like Air NZ will let 2 passengers pay to book out the middle seat for comfort. But this isn’t standard and this isn’t what happened here - it was just a passenger no show.

You may be able to reclaim the tax on the ticket if you contact the airline (I believe tax is only paid if the passenger flies).

So how do fat people book two seats then? Can you just book two under the same name then check in twice for one person???

They usually need to talk to the airline direct/get a code to use online.

Simply booking two seats in the same name probably/almost definitely won't work.

I’m not sure. I’d imagine where it’s possible on certain airlines the seats would have to be linked to and booked for the same passenger (otherwise you might risk them being separated if there was a last minute aircraft change with a different layout). At a guess maybe you contact the airline like you would for special assistance etc. I’m sure you’ll find an answer on Google - but it’ll all be contractual I.e. the terms of the booking with the airline.

But that’s not the case here, the seat was for a passenger that did not fly. It was not two seats booked for one person.

Your DD was a no show so they reallocated the seat. Very common.

I’m not sure. I’d imagine where it’s possible on certain airlines the seats would have to be linked to and booked for the same passenger (otherwise you might risk them being separated if there was a last minute aircraft change with a different layout). At a guess maybe you contact the airline like you would for special assistance etc. I’m sure you’ll find an answer on Google - but it’ll all be contractual I.e. the terms of the booking with the airline.

But that’s not the case here, the seat was for a passenger that did not fly. It was not two seats booked for one person.

A similar thing happened to us. DD decided not to fly home with us from somewhere. We had a spare seat for the first leg of the flight, but by the time we’d got to Singapore they’d sold the seat for the second leg.

Where is 'Celt'?

Because that’s not what happened here. This was a seat booked for another passenger that was a ‘no show’. So it was reallocated. It isn’t relevant who paid for it.

Others up the chain have explained you have to contact the airline direct to arrange a comfort seat for larger passengers or a seat for a musical instrument etc.

I don’t really understand why people are being shitty to the OP. She’s wrong, but she didn’t know 🤷🏻‍♀️ I didn’t know that either, it’s never occurred to me.

This is true. I did think of this after posting 😂 Also people will claim they were polite and say what they said but you have no idea which tone they actually used. "Polite" can be very close to "Arsey" 😂

I think it's morally wrong to oversell seats and airlines shouldn't be allowed to do it. Even if a passenger is a no show, the seat has been sold and unless they refund the passenger before the flight, it isn't their seat to fill!
I agree with the OP that morally that seat was hers/her DD's and the airline ought to have paid her for it before assuming it's theirs to re allocate.
Just because airlines routinely behave badly, that doesn't make the OP wrong!

OP, I’ve only skimmed the thread but I think I’m the only person who thinks you aren’t being unreasonable. As multiple people have said, ‘airlines don’t work this way’ - I have noted this and will take it as a warning. But for just about every other situation I can think of, if you have paid for something, it’s yours!

If you pre-pay in full for a lunch and your dining companion doesn’t show, the restaurant should bring the other person’s lunch if that’s what you want, and you could eat it all as well as yours. They couldn’t say ‘Oh sorry we’ve given the lunch away to this guy Dave and btw he’ll be sitting at your table eating it.’

Ditto hotel rooms, theatre tickets, and just about anything else in the world of purchasing things. Even if it’s viewed as unreasonable. Even if there is a waiting list of people desperate to see that play or stay in that hotel. If you’ve paid for it, it’s yours, and you could put a Beanie Baby on the theatre seat / in that hotel room for the night and that would be your right. So on this basis it doesn’t seem fair at all - I am happy to be a lone voice saying YANBU because I would feel just as miffed as you. There.

Well similarly I'm a childminder and if I have a child off on holiday and another one wants an extra day, i charge for that extta day but I don't refund the one on holiday. That's life.

If it's a no show and people are on stand by, they give them the seat. This is standard practice.

We were travelling back from Brisbane via Singapore with BA. All fine. Get on the flight back to Heathrow, we’d booked front seats as my husband and son are 6ft 4. Thought it would be great for extra leg room. Was the sh*iest plane ever, narrow seats the table things took up so much room as they came up from the arm rests and then the crowning glory, after takeoff they moved someone to the jump seat meant for cabin crew during takeoff and landing. For the whole sodding 14 hour flight…you got lucky op!

I can see your logic here and sorry it didn’t work out.
Awhile ago returning from visiting my friend in the Arctic the only flight home from Oslo was a commuter flight. I was slightly amused to see the power dressed suited ladies and gentlemen with their Armani suits and briefcases tapping away on keyboards before boarding.
What I didn’t realise was the reason I secured a window seat (lucky me I thought) was the man in the aisle seat had bought the middle seat too for his laptop and turned the area into an office!
As had every Suit on the aircraft.
He was more than annoyed I needed to get up to the toilet although I thought going at the same time as him was doing him a favour…apparently not…so I shut his laptop getting past it coming back and then asked him to turn the screen out of my view because I had a headache.

It's not a totally comparable situation because in your example the original family would have told you they weren't going to use the place they'd paid for. The OP did want the second seat and would have used it.
If your original family decided last minute that they wanted to use the space they had paid for ( say their holiday got cancelled last minute), it would be wrong (imo) for you to have resold that slot to a different family and not refund the first.

You were in the wrong.

The T and Cs that the OP would have agreed to when purchasing the ticket will say different. By the daughter not turning up, this is notice that the seat is not needed. You cant just decide another passenger is going to use it, whether they are the payer or not. That's why seats are booked in passenger names. The airline will always reallocate unused seats. Its their business model.

I get that she can't resell it. But I do think it's morally wrong than an airline can just take it and not refund the cost.

What does “to Celt” mean?

We hear of people booking two seats for themself, perhaps for a valuable musical instrument or because of obesity. But that will be treated differently to a no-show.

Can you not work out from context? It’s a typo. It’s obvious that she was typing, “Bought airline seat ticket.”