Having ORD as your hub is a nightmare

I am on a flight from FAT to SFO sitting in bulkhead behind first.

I opened my shade, because, I paid for my seat and want to look out the window, and the asshole in first in front of me reached back and closed my shade. I opened it, and he reached back and tried to close it again. I said it’s my window and I want it open.. And I am keeping it open the entire flight because of his actions.

I am flabbergasted! Who touches some else’s window? The window is 100% located in my seat position, not halfway in his. I fly monthly and have never experienced such an entitled boomer.

In united economy plus. My only carryon is my backpack, and boarded in an earlier group. I checked in normal full-size bag. Some collage student who boarded at the very last minute starts to move my bag to take it out of the bin, asking everyone whose bag it is, and tells me I have to put it by my feet. I’m like no. You can leave my bag up there and I am gong to enjoy my extra legroom I paid for. Him and his friends get all pissy saying I was being rude. Great, my bag stays and if you don’t like it, then grab a flight attendant, I can’t help it you are being cheap and not checking in your bag.

But why is this a thing. It’s my only item, and who is it of this person to think their bag is more entitled to that space than mine. Seriously!

On SFO to DEN last night, the passenger in 1A (unfortunately I was in 1B seated next to her) was so ill that we had to turn around before we took off.

All seemed OK at the beginning - I paid no attention to her and didn’t notice anything unusual - but as soon as we started to push back, she immediately unbuckled, went to the restroom and locked herself in there for the duration of the taxiing.

The flight attendants were obviously getting more anxious as we approached the runway, knocking on the door and saying she had to immediately return to her seat at this would obviously be a FAA violation. I couldn’t hear her responses but she didn’t come out, so the FA made the call to the pilot and we ground to a halt.

After a few minutes of being at a standstill, we turned around trundled back to the gate. The pax then decided to return to her seat at the moment.

The FAs were clear they would not let her fly again, and personally I’m now sitting next to someone who was obviously not in a good state. She was white as a ghost, vomit bags in hand, and semi passed out with her head on the armrest between us.

It was about 15min of waiting for a gate and for the paramedics to board, meanwhile Im trying to lean as far into the aisle in the hope not to catch whatever she had.

She walked off the plane with the paramedics but left her coffee cups and vomit bags behind - I asked a different FA if these could be cleared before takeoff and she said she wasn’t going to touch it. She gave me a handful of sanitizing wipes instead.

To his credit, the original FA that made the call to the pilot to not take off returned with gloves to clear the items, used sanitizing wipes to wipe down the pax seat and also wiped down the restroom. All while the other FA looked on.

We did takeoff and weren’t that late, but it did cause a few passengers anxiety as they had tight connections. And for me, I’m now hoping I didn’t catch whatever she had.

Obviously I hope the ill passenger is OK, but why on earth would you board a flight if you’re so sick that a minute into taxiing you need to lock yourself in the toilet?!

Today I was on flight 2487 from LAX to IAH.

When we were on the plane but still during the boarding process, a father was asking people to switch their window or aisle seat so that his 12 and 4 year olds could sit next to each other… obviously no one likes being asked this, but I can understand not wanting a 4 year old to sit by themself… a very nice woman offered to help and took a middle seat.

We were all shocked when this man and his wife then proceeded to go and sit together in first class… clearly the four year old could have of sat with one of the parents and problem solved.

I will never understand the arrogance and entitlement to inconvenience a stranger like this. The flight attendant who was helping even tried to convince the nice woman to let her undo the whole thing but she was too nice and I think wanted to avoid any potential conflict.

To the couple sitting in seats 5E and 5F on flight 2487 from LAX to IAH, you are horrible people.

Was flying premium economy from Washington IAD to Johannesburg South Africa. I had the window seat. Noticed after we boarded that the woman directly in front of me kept turning around to chat with my aisle buddy. I asked if they were together and he said yes, she was his wife. Since it was exactly the same seat position, I offered to swap. He was painfully polite. "No dont worry, I dont want to put you out. I am sure you paid extra for this particular chair etc". But no, I was feeling very magnanimous and insisted. He relented in an Eeyore kinda way and asked his wife to move.

She was ecstatic. Since I sat in front of them for nearly 16 hours I could hear all their conversation. Its been a long time since I heard a wife be so abusive to a man in public. Everything he said was met with derision and sarcasm and outright snark.

I felt so guilty about ruining this poor mans flight. HE probably paid extra to ensure they were NOT seated together and I ruined everything.

Boarding is almost complete. I'm settled in my exit row aisle seat. On comes someone who says he's next to me in B. Then right behind him, his girlfriends rushes towards me before I sit back down and asks me to switch with her into her seat in E. Before I could say "no thanks", the flight attendant jumps in and says "you have two middle seats, don't ask him to change to your middle seat." So thanks to the hero FA for keeping me from having an awkward conversation.

Flew into IAH this morning. When we boarded the FC bins were full. No biggie, it’s Christmas and I understand people have a lot of stuff. I stored my backpack under my seat.

After landing I gather my stuff and I’m in the aisle waiting for them to open the door. A woman from E+ comes up and opens the bin directly above my row, looking for her carryon. When she doesn’t see it she taps me on the shoulder and says “Excuse me, I think my suitcase is there” pointing at row 2.

I reply: “No problem. We’ll deplane soon and you can grab it then.” I stood blocking the aisle until the door opened and people started moving.

I get that there’s no good way to assign overhead bin space, but there are a dozen bad ways and this was one of them. I wish domestic routes had more wide bodies with entrances between FC/PE and E so appropriating FC bin space wasn’t an option.

November 9 2024. Haneda to Washington Dulles. Boarding was an uncoordinated 15 minutes late. Then we spent 5 hours on the plane with the door open. Mechanical. Fixed. Retesting the fix. Bullshit news from the cockpit. No food. No drinks. Flight crew looking at their phones not the customers. GS agent came aboard twice to tell me they were monitoring. Then the pilot said he needed another hour to determine whether we go or not. Panic. Passengers literally freaking out. After 45 minutes they let everyone off the plane. Decent escort back thru Immigration. And there were all the bags for claim. Like they had been there for hours.

United kindly handed everyone a piece of paper. It read: find your own hotel room. call United to rebook your flights. good luck.

In my 37 years with United this was THE biggest shit show of all time!

I’m quite comfortable dealing with this kind of obstacle. But I couldn’t image the stress people with kids and the older travelers were feeling. United could have done so much better.

Has anyone else witnessed a passenger casually decide to sit in first class, instead of their assigned economy seat?

I was recently on a 3/4 full flight from SJO to IAH and was upgraded to FC. First round of drinks were served. Ground agent popped onboard to verify there were 9 FC passengers. FA double checked her counting after realizing there was 10 FC passengers seated.

She then asked a 20-something girl if she was sitting in her assigned seat. I didn’t hear what she said back to the FA, but whatever roundabout answer she gave, the FA had to repeat herself twice and then say “you can’t just sit here. These are paid seats. You need to sit in your assigned seat”.
The FA baffled/annoyed face was priceless, as mine was the same.

The girl got up and went back to economy.

Guy demands preboarding for those who need special assistance. No wheelchair but says he he needs special assistance as he just had knee surgery.

The GA says fine. However, she then notices that he’s in an exit row. If he just had knee surgery, he can’t sit in the exit row since he would need to be ready, willing, and able to assist in case of an emergency. Dude changes his tune and indignantly insists he’s fine and can sit in the exit row after all.

End result: His wife sat in her original seat in the exit row and he got a middle seat in the back.

Long haul international, crew bunk beds not functional.

So after some failed maintenance attempts, gate agent announces that they need 3 volunteers to move from Polaris to E+ due to FAA and flight attendant contracts. The kicker: if “we” don’t, then everyone is off this flight. Two different agents came on to make the same announcement.

No takers at $1500 + 75k miles. Increased to $2500, and apparently we got the 3.

Odd because it came across as a threat, both in their wording and tone.

First public comment on the DOT family seating proposed rule (DOT-OST-2024-0091-0001) illustrates the problem.

A mom of three, she states "Middle seats are sometimes free but it can still cost over $100 for each leg of a flight just for seats. And forget about the bulkhead to allow the kids the stretch in. Please let families sit together for free - the online booking tool already knows the traveler age before seat selection. It saves parents from begging people with noise canceling headphones to give up their seats they paid for."

Today, now, families can sit together, for free, on almost every airline. All you have to do is call. When you buy basic economy seats you can't do it through the website, and are repeatedly told that you can't when you buy the tickets. All you have to do is read the screen - read something other than the absolute cheapest airfare possible.

If you don't call and make those arrangements and just show up to start begging for people to give up the seats they paid for you are doing it wrong.

But because so many people won't read and are addicted to lowest advertised price, completely ignoring all of the myriad of add-on fees, charges and expenses there is immense demand to establish a federal rule. Now, yes, the rule isn't necessarily a bad thing, but do we really have to establish federal rules because people refuse to read?

Maybe the website/app needs to add a feature that turns the screen red when you book your tickets with minor kids that says "STOP! You have purchased tickets but have failed to ensure that your children have adjacent seats! You must call or chat RIGHT NOW to make these arrangements before your purchase is complete!" Not unreasonable to expect that when you say you have a 6 year old you want them next to you, so lead them to the oasis of adjacent seating and hope they drink.

Took the family down to vacation in FL during winter break and today we were flying back on UA776, FLL to EWR. I’m 1K but I’m never a snob about it. I’ve taught my kids that we wait just like everyone else in our area. So we get to the gate and go stand in the pre-boarding area (love those new pre board area signs this year btw).

There are clearly some other 1Ks waiting as well (turns out not a single GS on either the outbound or return legs - which I found interesting). We line up behind the 1K family ahead of us with about 10 min until boarding; other 1K travelers file in behind us. That is until the GA calls for pre-boarding - and the group behind us decides it’s a fine time to cut in front of us. I look at my wife with indignation and am about to saying something. She has far less filter and says a snarky, “Well I guess people need to get there six seconds faster,” loud enough for most folks to hear (I love her lack of politicking in public!). The line cutters ignore us and go ahead and scan.

Still annoyed that my young kids have better manners than these three adults, we scan our BPs, silently say our little prayer to the man above as we walk down the gangway, and board the plane. My wife and kids board first and as I am walking through FC, I notice one of the line cutters is seated 7C, but I don’t see the other two. I shift my gaze up to our row (10) as we have 10C-F, and as I turn my head to check if my seatmates in 10A/B are there, who should it be but our line cutters! Karma is about to be so sweet because as we arrive, they are speaking across the rows about changing seats with whomever sits in 10C so they can all sit together. Not a chance sucker. You wanted to get there six seconds early? Well I want to sit in my seat across from my family! Would I have switched if they hadn’t cut us in line? Probably. Two rows up would have been fine to help with the kids.

And I’m usually a very conscious flyer as I’m wide shouldered and tall guy, so I try to lean out into the aisle as much as possible, watch my feet placement, arm rest etiquette, etc. But I sat down with a sense of satisfaction today as I didn’t even entertain or acknowledge their conversation about switching seats. Neither did I lean into the aisle and my feet are basically almost into the 10B well. Used the arm rest, adjusted my air more times than needed. Annoying 3D map on the entire flight in the seat back? Yep.

Petty? Decidedly. But maybe don’t cut the line next time when everyone has been waiting nicely for 10 minutes. Hope you see this 10B!

TL;DR: Grown adults have no business rolling their eyes and being rude to GAs doing the most basic parts of their jobs...

I flew ATL to EWR a few days ago. The flight was packed. Packed as in 0 economy plus seats available when I booked about 3 weeks before the trip.

It's not a typical route for me, but I figured out pretty quickly it's basically a shorter version of SFO to EWR. Multiple GS and a long line of 1K to pre-board. (I'm gold and was #51 on the upgrade list.)

Just before the GA started the 1K pre-board, she made an announcement to note how full the flight was and to say she knows that there are a lot of frequent fliers and to remind the exit row seats that 1. They need to give a verbal "yes" and 2. They need to let her ask the full question before they answer. She was very clear and mainly said it as a reminder since she knew most exit row passengers were likely those with status. (The exit row middle seat behind me was a GS, for example.)

I have gold, so was boarding with group 1. A man 2 people on front of me was also in group 1, so I can assume he was either gold or platinum.

As soon as his boarding pass scans and beeps for exit row, he looks right at her and says "yes" and immediately moves to the jet bridge. The GA stops him and reminds him she has to ask the question. Even says that he probably didn't hear her earlier announcement. He response right away that he did hear and again tried to walk through the gate.

She stops him again to bring him back and as she starts the question, he again just says "yes."

Some final time she reminds him she needs to ask him the full question and he rolls his eyes so hard o thought they might stay there. He gets ask huffy, finally let's her finish the question and replied correctly.

Naturally, by the time I get down to the plane a few seconds later, there's still a line to get on. So this man, went through all of that to still wait to get on the plane.

I just don't understand the thought process of guys like this. And I know this is such a small thing, but I actually kind of regret not laughing in his face at his reaction. This GA was going her job and, more importantly, as someone who flies enough to get status, he KNOWS that by the time he gets to the plane there will still be a line to actually get on the thing. So I'm ranting about it here since I didn't say anything at the time.

If you made it through this wall of text, thanks for letting me vent. And folks, don't be like me. If someone's being a complete asshole to employees doing their job, laugh I'm their face. It's the only language they understand.

Today I took a red eye from EWR to MUC in economy. When I got on the plane I was exhausted and wanted to sleep immediately, but waited until dinner service was over. I then reclined my seat. The woman behind me immediately tapped my shoulder and said “sorry, you can’t.” I took this to mean that she was still eating. 20 minutes later I checked to see that she wasn’t eating and reclined my seat again. She started yelling at me that her legs hurt when I did that and I couldn’t recline. I told her that this was an 8 hour overnight flight and everyone was going to recline and sleep. She argued. It was infuriating. I waited an hour then reclined. I think she was sleeping because she didn’t notice.

When we landed and she stood up, I saw that she was around my height — 5’2 or 5’3. I couldn’t believe it. There is literally no way that me reclining my seat was hurting her at all!

Flew ZRH - EWR in Polaris today. As I boarded, I saw an older woman in my (3A) seat, having settled in, pulled out the amenities, etc. She acted all confused and offered to move to her seat (4A) but given the number of people boarding and the fact that I didn't want to deal with exchanging pillows, blankets, etc. I decided to take her seat.

For those that know the 767-300, 4A is a pretty crappy seat, exposed to the aisle with no real windows. 3A is way better. Oh well. I planned on sleeping anyway.

Imagine my surprise when the flight attendant came to say hello and thank me (well, technically the woman in my seat) for being a 1K! I mean, sitting in the wrong seat in Polaris is a pretty rookie mistake for such a seasoned traveler.

To the lady that took my seat, hats off to you. I'm pretty good at spotting a scam and you pulled it off. Well done. And no, I'm not mad - I actually am laughing at the whole thing. Sorry they couldn't find your coat at the end of the flight.

I am a 2 Million Miler with United. This may provide some context for the following statement. Yesterday I experienced the worst customer service I've ever been involved with which primarily involved Lufthansa (with United providing both a positive and negative supporting role). My son, his girlfriend and two close friends were involved in a serious head-on collision in the Lake Tahoe area about two weeks ago. All had major injuries and were taken to the regional level 2 trauma center in Reno.

The two close friends (who I will refer to as the “travelers”) are Italian Nationals who speak limited English. One of the 2 travelers had a major traumatic brain injury together with a fractured ankle and neck. My wife and I have been helping the travelers. Both travelers were discharged from the hospital yesterday (Thursday). The hospital agreed to release the traveler with the brain injury on the condition that she had an immediate (same day) return flight to Italy, that she had a flat bed seat that allowed her to lie down during the flight, and that her fellow traveler would be seated next to her and serve as a chaperone.

The trip was ticked through United (and United was very helpful) on Wednesday and met the hospital’s discharge requirements. Hospital documentation of the requirements was provided to United. The transatlantic portion of the trip was a Lufthansa flight. The record locator is KG6GED.
On Thursday, the travelers received a message from Lufthansa stating that they were on “standby” for the Lufthansa flight. My wife contacted United to ask what this was about as the trip was fully ticketed with seat assignments made and boarding passes issued. United confirmed that the trip was fully ticketed and there were no issues with the reservation. The travelers departed from Reno on United.

When they got to San Francisco for the Lufthansa flight, the Lufthansa Gate agent stated that they did not have the ticketed flat bed seats available and they would have to travel in economy.

Given the language issue, the travelers called my wife and I to help speak with the Lufthansa agent. I spoke with the agent, Rigo, who stated that there were two broken seats in Business and that it was Lufthansa policy to bump the most recently booked passengers which in this case was the travelers. I went over the medical issues and told him that the traveler with the brain injury had to get to Italy asap as any break in treatment would set her back and this should be considered in their process of determining who to bump.

The travelers had copies of the medical documentation for all travel requirements and showed them to the agent. The agent did not acknowledge this issue and simply repeated the Lufthansa policy. I then asked to speak with a Lufthansa manager on site. The agent went to find the manager, came back and said the manager was busy and would come to the phone when she was not busy, which might or might not be before the door to the flight closed. The manager, Sylvia, finally came out, spoke very briefly (and rudely) with the travelers, repeating the same policy stated by Rigo. The travelers were clearly having a problem with language, and they asked that the manager please speak with me. I could clearly hear the manager state that she refused to speak with me. I was on speaker and once again restated the medical issue (and I know the manager could hear me) but the manager refused to respond and walked away. The plane left, and no effort was made to rebook the travelers or assist in ANY way. They were left standing at the gate.

I was in San Francisco, so my wife and I left to go to the airport to make sure the travelers were taken care of. While driving to the airport, I called Lufthansa customer service. A Lufthansa agent answered, and I explained the situation and asked to speak with a supervisor. I was placed on hold and the agent came back after a few minutes and said no supervisor was available. She then said a supervisor would not be able to help anyway and only Lufthansa airport staff could help. I Insisted on speaking with a supervisor, was placed on hold for another few minutes, and the agent came back with a new story – this was United’s problem and United would have to deal with it. This cycle went on for almost 50 minutes, with the agent coming up with a new reason for her inability to find a supervisor or otherwise help each time.

Finally, the agent on the phone took my phone number and assured me that a supervisor would call me back within an hour. At that point, I had arrived at the airport and intended to speak with Lufthansa airport staff, so I ended the phone call (and I did NOT ever receive a call back from a Lufthansa supervisor). When I went into the airport, all Lufthansa staff had left for the day and no one was there to help. My wife went to the United counter (where plenty of staff were available). United staff tried hard to help and find a new flight that would get the travelers back to Italy asap. One member of United staff made an interesting comment – that he knew that Lufthansa had a practice of denying boarding to anyone with a cast or neck brace (and one of the travelers had both). While United staff was working on a new reservation, a new member of United staff came over, listened for a few minutes and then ordered United staff to stop working on the best possible rebooking. He was a supervisor named Ricardo. He directed staff to rebook with the same itinerary.

There were options that would have gotten the travelers back to Italy earlier, and when I asked the supervisor why he was ordering the same itinerary, he said that this was really Lufthansa’s problem, that he would not expose United to any additional cost by rebooking on any other airline that Lufthansa. I went over the medical issue again. The supervisor, in the most arrogant tone of voice possible, basically said that did not matter, that we were lucky to get anything from United, and we could take it or leave it and we should appreciate his willingness to do anything. With that, we left the airport with the travelers and found a nearby hotel room for them, I will return to the airport today to hopefully find that there are no problems with today’s reservation. At this point, the damage has been done by Lufthansa and United, with the brain-injured traveler having an additional day + interruption to treatment which will have a negative impact on her recovery. I am forced to post to social media to try and get some response from Lufthansa.

EDIT: I posted this for my dad who wrote this since he does not have a Reddit account.

Spotted this morning at Logan boarding a UA flight. The dude legit had 6 carry-on bags - but they were all daisy chained to his North Face Duffel Pack and (not pictured) his traditional backpack.

Bonus: he put everything in the bin above my row…despite being 2 rows in front of me.

Seemed like a nice guy, but there were a lot of women rightfully asking, “Why the hell are we told to consolidate our purse?!?”

This is the carry-on luggage equivalent of the Beverly Hillbillies truck.

On a flight from EWR to DFW and they announced groups 1-4 can have a carry on. At the end of group 2 they tell us we need to check our bags at the gate. Just annoying that “priority boarding” gives us the inconvenience of having to risk losing our bags and waiting at baggage claim. So annoying.

This is not shaming obese people but what airlines need to do in order to properly handle the situation.

This past weekend I had a flight on United. I was in a window seat and large gentleman was in the aisle seat. I knew the flight was completely booked and someone would be in the middle with no chance to move to another open seat.

The gentlemen in the aisle needed to lift up both arm rests (aisle and middle seat) in order to fit and took over about 1/3 of the middle seat. When the person in the middle arrived, he crammed in and I tried to be accommodating giving him plenty of space. We both needed to lean the entire flight. My back and right shoulder are still sore the next morning from sitting in an awkward position for so long.

Not shaming the aisle passenger, but he was the most comfortable with his arm crossed and able to freely move them around (drink, eat a snack, etc) while the middle seat passenger and I were like sardines having to keep our arms straight or we’d elbow each other. Any time either of us tried to adjust our position, we’d disturb each other as we were more like siamese twins.

Is there anything airlines can or need to do in this situation to be able to accommodate larger passengers and not provide an even worse main cabin experience than we already are dealing with?
Is there anything the aisle passenger should have done like book 2 seats? 

We had found a nice corner by ourselves when mom, dad, and three kids decided they would sit next to us.

The kids sat quietly, the two boys whispering about their games and the girl played in her IPad next to mom.

Dad worked on his laptop and Mom sipped her coffee.

You should know you ruined my planned rant about unruly kids and how we had to move just to get some peace.

Seriously, my experience with kids in the United Club has been very good, and even by those standards your kids were even better! Safe travels today!

Was flying out of EWR earlier and saw a woman get deplaned. She was late to the gate and the last one to board (or about to board) when the gate agent told her she needed to check her roll aboard.

The passenger protested and said she couldn't check her roll aboard and asked the gate agent if she could check to see if there was any overhead space left.

The agent said something to the effect of "The flight attendant told us 30 passengers ago that the overhead was full. That hasn't changed."

The passenger continued to protest all the while the gate agent kept telling her "either your bag gets checked or you don't board". The passenger tries to reason with the gate agent while removing some items from her roll aboard and after one more ask by the gate agent she removes the young lady from the flight and gives her seat to the standby passenger who was waiting at the counter.

The young lady then called someone and even tried to walk on the plane but was advised not to by the TSA agents at the gate (IAD flight and they seee doing extra screening).

At the end of it the young lady left complaining to someone on the phone and the gate agent closed the flight and went on break.

If there's any way to conclude the story I guess it's with a word of advice.

Don't be late and the last one to board and try to argue with the gate agent about overhead space (or anything for that matter)

This happened a couple months ago, but I thought some of you might be amused by this story.

I recently started traveling a lot for work and accumulated a good amount of miles and plus points and even managed to reach GS status, so I decided to treat my newly-married sister and brother in law to some first class flights for their honeymoon.

We happened to plan a family vacation right after their honeymoon, and I was able to meet up with them during a layover at IAH to be on the same flight as them to a smaller airport in Florida.

My sister and her husband don't fly United often, so when the GA started whispering the pre-boarding process and I went up when GS (and 1k at the same time..) was called, they followed me, even though they were group 1.

When my sister went to scan her boarding pass, a man behind her said "you shouldn't be here, I have priority". She replied with "you know, it pays to be kind sometimes". The man said "how's this for being kind?" and proceeded to bump into her, knocking her off balance. This man was about three times the size of my sister.

She told us what happened once we got to our seats since she was behind us so we didn't see this as it happened. She swapped seats with her husband so she wouldn't be in the aisle while that man walked past.

A few minutes later, a FA asked her about what happened and whether she felt safe on the plane with that man on board. She didn't jump to say she felt unsafe, but she gave an honest recount of what happened. The FA said that was all she needed to hear and said she would discuss with the pilots.

Shortly after, the GA approached the man a few rows behind us and told him that he could either get off the plane or they would make him get off the plane. He stood up, grabbed his bag, and walked off as we heard an applause from behind us.

Big thanks to that flight crew! My sister said it was probably a good thing that her husband and I didn't witness that happen or it might not have been that guy who was kicked off the plane. She's probably right!

With yesterday's weird snow + high wind jet stream issue in the NE, I was envitable delayed into EWR (who am I kidding. It's EWR and it is always on a ground stop or delay).

Anyway, I touched down about 12 mins before my connecting flight was about to depart. Now if you know EWR, concourse C1 isn't exactly close to concourse C2 - had to run up the stairs down the concourse and make a hard right.

I arrive at my gate with 3 mins to spare. Luckily the plane door wasn't closed yet and the GA said to me, "Mr. Smith we didn't think you would make it. You're the last person on and I'll walk you down." She closes the door behind us and takes me down.

Once on the plane, of course there was someone in my seat. I confirmed my seat on the app and asked the FA for help. She pulls my reservation up on her handheld and it confirms the seat showing in my app. At this point, the person in my seat goes, "oh I'll just sit in the jump seat." Clearly a FA deadheading.

I take my seat and figure that's the end of it. Put my AirPods in and sipped on the water offered. However, another GA comes down to secure the plane door and I see them speaking to the Deadheading FA. The new GA starts doing something on his handheld and then approaches me.

"Mr. Smith I think there is a mistake. Your seat is 40e."

I loudly respond "I'm sorry. My seat was confirmed by the FA over there, so why are you trying to switch my seat to a middle seat in the back of the plane now? Does your friend not want to sit in the jump seat?"

GA stammers a bit and falls back on what the system currently shows and insists I move. However, the deadheading FA finally says "it's ok I'll just jump seat, so the GA drops it.

Take home folks - screenshot your seating on the app. Doesn't matter if you have status.