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Hello. I was reading another thread and many people mentioned they had selected their seats strategically and then the airline moved them. This has happened to me more times than I can recall and it's so aggravating. What's worse is they always switch me to a seat that's worse, usually a middle seat in the back of the plane. Why do they do this and why can't I just get the seat I paid for?
I've heard that they'll do this in order to give their preferred customers a better choice of seats. Don't know if this is true or not.
I used to really despise Southwest's open-seating policy, but I'm starting to see the benefits. Yes, the A-listers get first crack at it, followed by people who paid $12.50 to get Early Bird Check-In. But after that, it's first-come, first-served. If you can get the seat of your choice, you know it'll be yours for the duration of the flight.
Equipment (aka plane) change is a common one. Within each kind of aircraft there are different subtypes and seating configurations (especially when you get two airlines merging into one) and if an airline was supposed to be, say, using a 737-800 for a given flight and had to change that to, say, a 737-700 for whatever reason (mechanical, weather delays, whatever) the seating configuration between the two planes is just different enough that some people will end up in different seats due to the plane swap.
This happened to me for the first time three days ago. My boarding pass said seat 15E (window), but when the gate agent scanned my pass as I was boarding, out popped another boarding pass changing me to 17E. I was at first startled by the switch, not having had this experience before, but in the end it made no difference to me.
I've heard that they'll do this in order to give their preferred customers a better choice of seats. Don't know if this is true or not.
I used to really despise Southwest's open-seating policy, but I'm starting to see the benefits. Yes, the A-listers get first crack at it, followed by people who paid $12.50 to get Early Bird Check-In. But after that, it's first-come, first-served. If you can get the seat of your choice, you know it'll be yours for the duration of the flight.
Not the case at all.
Seats get switched due to equipment changes. Unless you are on Air France and their entire ticketing and seating system fails. Happened to me. Won't every fly them again, their handling of a problem they were aware was a problem long beforehand was abysmal.
Anyhow, airlines have a bucket of seats that are allocated for frequent flyers. To those without status they just look like booked seats. Most also reserve exit rows for those with status. Best thing to do is check your seat every couple weeks, every week as you get closer. If it's changed, fix it before everyone else realizes their seats are also changed and snap things up.
This rarely ever happens to me. I guess periodically check your reservation on the airline's website. If an equipment change happens, you can pick another better seat.
Though if it's really last minute, not so much. I've had to deplane after boarding already started because the pilot doing his preflight checklist saw something he didn't like and it was quicker for Delta to move us to a plane already set up for the following morning's flight than to keep us on the plane while the mechanics did their troubleshooting. (I think they were worried about the crew timing out and going illegal if the delay was going to be any length of time.) Fortunately it was 717 to 717 and Delta seems to have only one configuration of those so the gate agents didn't have to re-seat anyone; we just used the same boarding assignments from the firstp lane.
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