American Airlines Flight Attendant Told A Passenger To Move Out Of Business Class. He Refused — And Kept His Seat

A bizarre situation unfolded on American Airlines flight AA171 from New York JFK to Los Angeles on Tuesday, July 21. An AAdvantage Executive Platinum passenger says they were upgraded into seat 6A on the new Airbus A321XLR with business class suites. This was a 6 a.m. flight and he went to sleep as soon as he boarded, but wound up getting into an altercation with a woman who demanded his seat because hers was broken – and a flight attendant told him he could either accept economy or get off the plane. And yet he somehow argued his way back into his original seat. The plane wound up departing at 6:36 a.m. and arriving at 8:46 a.m., about half an hour late. The woman apparently had a seat whose controls were broken and wouldn’t recline. He says she complained and asked the crew to identify someone who had received a complimentary upgrade. A flight attendant woke him and asked whether he would switch with the woman. He was half asleep, wearing earplugs and a hat over his eyes, and initially agreed without understanding why she wanted the seat. The first flight attendant did not disclose that 3F was defective. A second flight attendant then warned him that the replacement seat did not work. He withdrew his agreement. In the meantime, the woman allegedly gathered her belongings, moved to 6A, spread out her possessions and settled into the seat. She allegedly argued that because she had paid for her premium cabin ticket and he had been upgraded, he was required to give her the functioning seat. He recorded several other videos with backstory. After he refused a flight attendant’s options to switch seats, move to economy, or leave the aircraft – putting his earplugs back in, and going to sleep – he ultimately flew to Los Angeles in his original 6A. Meanwhile he calls the woman who took his seat a “Karen.” It is currently six in the morning, and I am getting in a fight in the first-class section on a flight back to L.A. from New York. So, I was half asleep, and this woman—she is currently in my seat—woke me up because she was like, “Hey, do you mind swapping seats?” And I thought it was because she wanted a better view or something. And no: it’s because her seat doesn’t recline. And she’s acting like it’s somehow my fault. And she won’t get out of my seat. She’s just in it. Passenger, addressing the woman: You’ve got to get out of my seat. This is crazy. Woman: What? I’m going to UCLA. Passenger: I went to USC, so that makes it even worse. You’re holding up the entire flight. You’ve got to get out of my seat. Woman: You were moved, sir. Passenger: My boarding pass says 6A. Yours says 3F. You’re just such a— …Well, got my seat back. Oh, good Lord. Nearby passenger: Bro, you almost got robbed, bro. You saw that? You almost got robbed, bro. I like that the woman explained she needed the seat because was was ‘headed to UCLA’. He says “I went to USC, so that makes it even worse.” I still have my ‘Trample The Trojans’ t-shirt from Beat ‘SC Week. This Was Clearly Handled Badly It seems to me that <asking him to switch seats was reasonable, but he should have been informed about issues with the seat (why is it always American Airlines? and with a plane in service just about seven months only). Allowing the woman to move into the new seats before discussing it with the passenger who had been assigned there is a recipe for conflict. What’s very strange about this story is: Saying a paying passenger is entitled to displace an upgraded passenger when their seat is discovered not to work post-boarding is not actually a rule. Offering economy or the broken seat would be valid only if the airline had actually reassigned him to 3F But they clearly had not done so since he says they ultimately allowed him to remain in 6A. Leaving two passengers to argue over possession of the seat rather than making a single decision about how to proceed at the airline level is problematic. Maybe Try To Fix The Broken Seat? I wonder if American might have considered calling maintenance to address what was wrong with seat 3F here. I realize this wasn’t considered a genuinely inoperative seat, since they were allowing the passenger to sit there (inoperative positioning controls don’t disqualify a seat as long as it’s secured and immovable in the taxi, takeoff and landing position). Otherwise it would have to have been blocked and marked ‘Do Not Occupy.’ A Downgraded Passenger Is Entitled To Compensation If they were offering a seat that wasn’t fully functioning to a passenger in lie flat business class on a premium cross-country flight, that should come with significant customer service compensation. If he was downgraded I’d make the argument for significant compensation, too, and not just as a customer service matter. That’s an involuntary downgrade, entitling him to a refund (if he chose not to travel) or a difference in fare The difference in fare would have been zero since it’s a complimentary upgrade So while no statutory refund would be due, American’s contract of carriage appears to require one. American Airlines adopted a rule where an involuntary downgrade entitles the passenger to a 40% refund. That’s normally a passenger-unfriendly rule, and they have no basis for limiting compensation this way. In fact, they told the Department of Transportation they’d back off of it by the end of July. However, in this case it would benefit the passenger. Was She Actually A ‘Karen’? “Karen” is slang generally used to describe a woman as privileged, indignant, and aggressively entitled in a public dispute. Originally it was more limited to a middle-aged white women invoking social or racial privilege to control or report others (‘to the manager’). He uses the term because she treated her paid fare as conferring authority over another passenger, occcupied 6A without waiting for the exchange to be finalized and then refused to leave, presented the disputed reassignment as a settled fact—“You were moved, sir” and expected priority rather than requesting a favor. That qualifies as “entitled public complainer” which fits the broad derogatory definition, but I wonder if the term has therefore lost all meaning. This Situation Ultimately Makes No Sense I do not understand a passenger moving to another seat and occupying it, flight crew then presenting the choice of taking a broken seat or a downgrade, but actually allowing the passenger to fly in their original seat when they pushed back. One Mile at a Time thinks that the passenger here was formally downgraded but “somehow bullied his way back into the original seat” and is therefore in the wrong. I agree that’s one way to square the circle for how a situation that makes no sense could have happened, but it assumes a lot. If he was formally downgraded and refused to move that usually ends up with either police boarding the aircraft or everyone on the plane being offloaded, not flying in the original seat. Topics on this page