RichardMEL
Enthusiast
- Joined
- Mar 28, 2014
- Posts
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Have to love it when QF downgrade an A330 to a 737. Tuesdays (21/11) QF409 SYD-MEL sector was an example of this. Had originally selected 23B. It is a good Y seat on the QF A330's but not so good on the QF 737's. Was lucky enough to do web check in and picked up the aircraft downgrade at about t-23hrs so was able to get 5C. By the sounds of the heated words on boarding a CL/P1 passenger on the flight wasn't so lucky and was allocated his original 23D A330 seat on the 737.
I'm assuming it wouldn't be to difficult to pull together a use case that caters for an aircraft downgrade and allocates seating on the downgraded aircraft based on the seating requests from the original aircraft.
While I absolutely agree that an a/c change should trigger reseating I have 2 thoughts on this:
1. What happens if it's then subbed again? eg back up to a 330 ? It has been known to happen.
2. What if it's a late sub?
I think it opens a minefield here - in a downgrade you'll never satisfy everyone and of course some people's preferred 330 seats will be different to the 737 (for example, those who may dislike row 10 I think without the window)
And finally a personal observation on any entitled pax throwing a wobbly like this... come on it's a 1 hour flight you'll survive in 23D as much as you will in 5D with only a few extra minutes perhaps in getting off the a/c (which probably would be the really irritating part).
Remember the good old days when domestic seats were never preallocated and you got given what you got when you checked in? One argument QF and AN used for this system (where the seating was allocated overnight prior) was that aircraft subs can happen and no seat is guaranteed.
If it was me would I be annoyed? you bet ya. Would I be aware (I'm almost certain I'd look and note durng OLCI and sort it myself). Would I politely ask at the gate if I failed to notice before? possibly depending on how busy the staff were but at the end of the day if I couldn't easily swap to something a little better.. you know what? I'd cop it and think it's a 1 hour flight and deal.
It's amazing to me some of the childist antics one sees of *some* passengers, specially "very important business types with plat and gold tags" - specially the way they treat agents during a delay situation or something similar.
but I digress...