Bumped from Row 4 at the gate

[mviy]

That probably puts you still at or near the top of the list again to get moved into a different seat if it’s going to happen. Bronze status and you got the seats cheaply.

 

[jakeseven7]

They will.

I've had mixed feedback on that from P1's who have and haven't been successful, whereas CL its more like 'absolutely' would you like the pilot's jump seat

 

[Princess Fiona]

CL's + 'Friends of Qantas VIP/CIP' are absolutely able to have people moved (not that they would directly request this, they might just ask 'are there better seats further forward?' and the staff would say 'leave it with me' and then bump people around to accommodate.

P1 unsure if staff would do this for them.

They will move people for P1

 

[jakeseven7]

Seems like it’s common place rather than a one off.

I wouldn't go as far as saying it is common at all, but it can happen.

Personally I've never had it happen, unless you count op-ups

 

[Matt_01]

Was J coming home an upgrade or points seat or did you buy a business seat using cash?

You're probably less likely to get moved in J but every seat in J is better than being in Y.

Agree that J seats are less likely to be impacted and from my experience be it points or revenue seats it made no difference. As a P1 I have been involuntary downgraded from Y from J on a couple of occasions but these were both a direct result of severely delayed inbound international sectors and QF having to reshuffle a large no. of PAX. IME when travelling J and if QF would like to move you there is normally a request to go to the service desk and normally asked if your willing to swap seats.

 

[Matt_01]

I've had mixed feedback on that from P1's who have and haven't been successful

I would agree with this as there are variables that come into play, IME I have been looked after and had requests met by the lounge staff who knew I was P1 and through years of week in/out travel accepted me as part of the furniture. My most common request was to keep the shadow blocked which could be done by lounge staff however I suspect this may not be available in the future given QF has axed the lounge service desk staff.

OT depending on when the P1's that have given mixed feedback achieved their status, the P1 world started to change around 2014-16. Prior to this one could walk into the lounge and request to be upgraded and it just happened without using points. If there was someone sitting next to you for 'operational reasons' P1s could be upgraded and the list goes on. At some point in 2015/16 QF clamped down on this and all the unpublished benefits ended. Take a look at the P1 thread from a few years back as unpublished benefits was often a topic of conversation. When reading the QF spin on the benefits of P1 it is just that. Time to get off my soap box.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

We were the last to board and found our row 4 seats occupied. (4A,C,D and E were occupied.)

Just out of interest, what was the loading like in the rows immediately behind, like 5-8? Were they also just 4 people rather than 6?

I suppose it could be possible they wanted to move 1/3 of the people down the back.

 

[Frankiesdad]

Our seats were occupied in the system. As in, the passengers occupying our seats were allocated those seats, they did not move after boarding. The flight attendant gave us this information during the flight.

Just out of interest, what was the loading like in the rows immediately behind, like 5-8? Were they also just 4 people rather than 6?


I suppose it could be possible they wanted to move 1/3 of the people down the back.

I didn’t really take notice of the loading in rows 5-8, though the seat map showed them to be full. I recall that the majority of Y was seated in rows 4-15 (80%) With only about 20% or 5-10 passengers seated in rows 16-30.

 

[Danger]

It's once thing to be moved; quite another to be lied to.

Frankiesdad, you're entitled to be miffed and I believe equally entitled to a satisfaction explanation.

 

[Matt_01]

I didn’t really take notice of the loading in rows 5-8, though the seat map showed them to be full.

I think what @MEL_Traveller was getting at was sighting of people in seats. Seat maps can be deceiving as airlines impose blocks based on their own traveller status and what will be published whereas sites such as EF displays what is blocked be it hard or soft. As an example when travelling QF dom if I select 4C, EF would show 4B as blocked however other P1/CLs using the QF site could see that this seat is available for selection. There are many threads discussing seat maps. Rearranging people to balance aircraft is far beyond my comprehension, interest or pay grade.

Post automatically merged: Mar 24, 2021

It's once thing to be moved; quite another to be lied to.

Frankiesdad, you're entitled to be miffed and I believe equally entitled to a satisfaction explanation.

Agree but I would not hold my breath in getting a satisfactory answer from QF.

 

[Daver6]

As a P1 I have been involuntary downgraded from Y on a couple of occasions

Downgraded from Y? To the wing or toilets at the rear?

 

[Matt_01]

@Daver6 good pick up either "from J" or "to Y" would have been correct. My poorly worded "from Y" either option you suggest would have been an appropriate punishment At least I was able to edit the offending post.

 

[Vic]

The only thing I can think of is that other passengers did the 'steal' in hoping that boarding was almost finished and looked like that row might be free so moved there, hoping they wouldn't have to do a walk of shame back to their original seat. It happens quite a lot.

Extremely unlikely to be 4 individuals who did that, given the occupied seats were A, C, D, F

But if that was the case surely the OP wouldn't have been reissued with a new boarding pass at the gate.
.

No only that, but if the move was truly a critical weight and balance issue, I'd expect the crew to be making those in row 4 to get back to their proper seats.
After all, safety is Qantas' first priority.

 

[milehighclub]

Extremely unlikely to be 4 individuals who did that, given the occupied seats were A, C, D, F

Well the OP said it was A, C and DE. So two individuals and a pair - very possible (and very normal but so is your combination). As I said, it might not have been the case (and clearly wasn't as the OP asked the crew) but passengers moving seats like that in advance is very normal. I see people moving all the time (easily 5-6 on most flights), often caught out when the person who has the seat arrives.

 

[flydoc]

if the move was truly a critical weight and balance issue, I'd expect the crew to be making those in row 4 to get back to their proper seats.

This

 

[Vic]

Well the OP said it was A, C and DE. So two individuals and a pair - very possible (and very normal but so is your combination). As I said, it might not have been the case (and clearly wasn't as the OP asked the crew) but passengers moving seats like that in advance is very normal. I see people moving all the time (easily 5-6 on most flights), often caught out when the person who has the seat arrives.

Sorry, yes, DE.
Still I highly doubt that 3 separate travelling parties would neatly arrange themselves in that order as part of an on board self prompted seat move.

 

[milehighclub]

Still I highly doubt that 3 separate travelling parties would neatly arrange themselves in that order as part of an on board self prompted seat move.

Passengers can be very organised when they want to be. And that pattern makes perfect sense. As I said, I see it all the time the arrangements passenger like to make with empty seats. For exit rows (not on the 737 as they are always allocated with passengers as its a requirement), people move into A/C, D/G and H/K leaving the middle seats free.

But in a row of 3 with moveable arm rests, no one moves to the C, they leave it to A to have the row.

Passengers also do things like leave a bag to move after take off and don't claim ownership, then you have a security issue. Almost had to go back to the gate once for this.

Again, I accept that on this occasion that wasn't the case, but passengers moving around (when they shouldn't, on any aircraft, at least without permission) is very common.

 

[Flying Fox]

I've been bumped from 1A.

I spoke to the lounge staff and asked if I got 'trumped' by a CL or similar and they where honest enough to say 'yes'.

I appreciated the honesty.

 

[AIRwin]

I spoke to the lounge staff and asked if I got 'trumped' by a CL or similar and they where honest enough to say 'yes'.

Did you recognise who it was upon boarding?

 

[ozbeachbabe]

I'm sure it's frustrating to get these seat changes and it's easy to jump to conclusions as to why such a move was done but often it's just a couple of things that happen in isolation that when combined, result in the scenario experienced by the OP.

If someone was moved from row 4 to row 28 I'm 99% sure that the move would have been done by load control so the gate agent wouldn't have had any knowledge the pax had been moved from row 4 to row 28 unless load control had rung the gate and asked them to do the moving which goes something like "I need 6 people moved from rows 4-10 to aft of row 20" so the flight is in trim.

In the past if there had been a seat change the original boarding pass would beep as it would reject at the gate. Now a docket will print out with the new seat number so I'm guessing when the OP scanned their row 4 boarding pass a docket for row 28 printed out then the F/A or gate agent doing the boarding has then informed the pax of the seat change.

If the flight was that lightly loaded and the lounge wanted to move eg a CL /P1 pax to row 4 then it's highly likely there would have been other seats further forward to reassign to the pax so row 28 would have been overkill. When the gate agent said words to the effect of "row 4 needs to be blocked for operational reasons" it's really a case where there were too many pax in the forward rows and some pax needed to be moved aft so it might have been more helpful to say that.

It's quite possible that the people who ended up in row 4 may have just been a couple of rows back in which case moving people from row 6 to row 4 would not affect the trim as those rows would be considered as being in the same zone. They may not have even known that people who were originally in row 4 were moved back to row 28 and could've simply asked in the lounge whether there were seats available in row 4.

When seats are blocked by load control they would appear as occupied or full on the seat map so it's not indicitive of how many pax are on the flight or if pax are physically assigned those seats.

I have seen quite a lot of this lately so I don't there was anything sinister at play but that's just my 2c worth!