Empty seat on airplane - someone moved to it

[bloxe]

Booked an extra leg room seat for an overnight flight in economy. Sat in the aisle seat. Middle seat was empty. Great I thought, I won’t feel claustrophobic and can sleep.

Just after the lights went dim, a guy came and plonked himself in the empty seat so he could get extra leg room. His wife now had three seats to herself so she could spread out too.

But this guy was over the arm rest so I couldn’t sit straight in my seat as I’d be touching him, which meant I had to lean towards the aisle instead. So I kept getting bumped by people walking up and down.

Was the guy right to move? Should I have said something?

Yes the flight I’m referring to was half empty. I’m not talking about 2/3 people moving.
They had kept blocks of rows empty.

The weight thing may well be real.

Flight is an amazingly complicated balance of physics and forces and, in a storm, the biggest of those just got cross. I wouldn't blame any pilot for wanting his plane to be as stable as possible

Fwiw, the 'average weight' thing has been the cause of crashes in the past. People got heavier, the data wasn't updated and a plane with an unbalanced load exceeding capability went down in poor weather because of it.

I assume ( I hope!) that airlines have updated their averages again lately, but who knows?

But this guy was over the arm rest so I couldn’t sit straight in my seat as I’d be touching him, which meant I had to lean towards the aisle instead

No it didn't.

This is what your voice is for. Why didn't you ask him to move off the arm rest if he was encroaching?

On BA I often have an empty seat as it is blocked statistical seating as I am BA gold- I would be annoyed if someone moved into it.

The weight thing is real! It's most important during landing and take off so usually passengers are asked to stay in their allocated seat until the session belt sign goes off. Sometimes people can move seats but as others have said you can only sit in an extra leg room seat on an easyJet flight if you've had the safety briefing and that happens before take off...

At the risk of stirring up the bickering from the airport skinflint thread, I fly alone a lot at my own expense on easyJet, I always refuse all extras on the booking website, including seat upgrades, but I make sure I board last, and there is nearly always a spare extra-legroom seat that I quietly insert myself into as it it's mine. No one has ever said anything yet!

So op paid extra for leg room and the guy who sat next to her didn't, he just bagged a seat that was empty? If that's the case I would have complained to the fight attendant that I either want my money back that I paid extra for the leg room or the guy has to go back to the correct seat that he paid for.

Airlines/authorities run surveys of passenger weights on a regular basis to ensure assumed figures are correct.

And yes the weight balance thing is very much “real”, before every commercial flight one of the bits of paperwork the captain gets presented with is a loadsheet. That document is prepared by the ground staff and the flight crew have to check over to ensure that the numbers such as weights and centre of gravity position are within the legal limits, if all is OK they then the captain signs as accepting it…

If anyone still has any doubts and think all the talk of CoG and trim is a red herring, or maybe just wants further details and is into things like Centre of Gravity, centre of pressure and moment arms then there”s lots of fun to be had here..and this just covers the basic:

https://safetyfirst.airbus.com/understanding-weight-and-balance/

@ginnybag

Bit more info:recent passenger weight survey:

www.easa.europa.eu/en/newsroom-and-events/news/easa-review-standard-passenger-weights-2022-shows-no-significant-change

I guess the red herring is they have no way of knowing whether 200 8st wet through passengers are going to show up or 200 20st people are going to show up.

True they don’t but certainly where I worked there were reminders issued at times to people such as gate staff and crew to keep an eye out for the outliers such as a whole American Football team travelling as a group.

As the last EASA study showed (link in my pp) the current assumed weights used this side of the pond are still considered adequate but it needs continued monitoring.

BA sometimes come down a plane particularly one not full and say that the pilot has requested that you move for weight balance. This is done before takeoff

Might just be a plan to avoid a tail tip during boarding and cargo loading but once you’ve closed up then unless people have indulged in a mass migration prior to takeoff that sounds a bit odd, I’ve flown with BA a lot and it’s certainly not a common request, certainly not with BA Mainline.

As long as people are seated in their assigned seat rows as per the seating plan the crew pretty much have to go with the numbers as presented on the load balance paperwork…doing anything else is guess work which is very very much frowned upon.

Some aircraft can give you a warning on the ground if the trim set up on the flight deck isn’t appropriate for the predicted Centre of Gravity but the usual solution to that is to get the loading rechecked, not simply move passengers around.

It's fine. I fly often, and it happens all the time.

You should have asked him to move his arm.