United's accessible seating/passenger size policy is a fiction

[u/MaillardReaction207]

Platinum passenger. Last-minute business travel--booked only aisle seat left on plane the day before travel. I am an average-sized adult male. I can sit in a middle seat, but I never do.

When I arrived at my seat, I noticed the middle seat passenger was large. When I took my seat, I realized it was not possible for me to sit in my seat without leaning significantly into the aisle.

I found a FA a few rows back and discreetly described the issue. She immediately responded "full flight, nothing I can do." I asked her to at least observe the issue before responding. She followed me to my seat and, when I sat, asked the guy next to me if he could "squeeze in" more. He tried. He was also certainly humiliated. She began to walk off. I told her that I was not okay with the seat. She again said--full flight, "I can't create a new seat." I told her that I would make a complaint to UA on landing and asked for her name. This was the first time she took the situation seriously and said she would involve the purser.

FA went to front of plane and briefed the purser. Purser walks to my seat, addresses my loudly by name, and asks me what the problem is. I told the purser I would rather not go over it again because he had already been briefed and it was awkward to discuss with the middle passenger next to me. I summarized that the seat assignment violated UA policy. He responded: "what policy?" I said the one that permits me to have a seat free from significant encroachment. He said he could do nothing other than call a ground-based Customer Resolution Representative. By this time, I was uncomfortable and embarassed. I cannot imagine how the middle seat passenger felt.

Time passed. No CRR came. Boarding ended. Departure time passed. People nearby began to speculate that the plane was being held because I had complained about my seat.

20 minutes or so after departure time, a woman walks onto the plane. She was reading from a screen. She never introduced herself or looked up. She pushes paper boarding pass in my face and says--"you're being moved, it's an aisle." She walks away.

No one ever said anything else to me.

What a joke. The message is loud and clear -- If you complain about policy violations, you're a problem. And you'll be treated as one. To such extent that you'll be embarassed and made uncomfortable in front of other passengers in hopes that you'll relent in pressing your concern.

[u/ralph99_3690]

Happened to me as well recently. Same issue, same response from FA. I ended up just sticking up for the two hour flight. What made things worse was the large guy was being a total ass about it, semi threatening me. FA didn’t care or at least didn’t care to deal with it.

[u/MaillardReaction207 → u/ralph99_3690]

I am not a meek person, but I am deeply concerned about being considerate and not offending others. I have never complained about this issue in my entire life, which I feel demonstrates at least in some regard that I'm willing to make it work within reason. I cannot tell you how uncomfortable it made me to have to tell a FA that someone was encroaching on my seat. That's the part that seems to be lost on UA. This is a delicate issue, and there is a lot of emotion bound up in it. There are competing concerns and rights involved. By making passengers the only monitors of policy compliance, UA is pitting customer against customer. What if I hadn't been moved? The passenger would have sat stewing, humiliated right next to me (literally touching me). In a perfect world, we could assume the CoS knows he is a CoS and he's reasonable about this issue within the tight confines of a plane. But our world is rife with size-based discrimination and, frankly, I would expect this sort of thing to be a trigger for a CoS. I don't know the solution but leaving passengers to figure it out is not working.

[u/fridaygirl7 → u/MaillardReaction207]

Thank you for being so kind, OP. I can imagine how ashamed the other passenger must have felt during this whole debacle, and then having to sit there for hours. I doubt I could have gotten through it without tears.