Amarried couple who were hoping to travel from Washington Dulles to Edinburgh in United’s Polaris International Business Class have discovered the hard way why you should avoid booking seats 4A or 4B on the airline’s Boeing 757 aircraft.
The problem, it turns out, is that you could end up forfeiting your paid-for seat so that one of the pilots can have a rest and depending on where you are flying, there are few consumer protections to save you from being downgraded to EconomyTaking to Reddit, the couple’s son-in-law explained how they had been hoping to fly with Washington Dulles to the Scottish capital on August 3 but due to bad weather across the Northeast, the flight ended up getting canceled and they were rebooked on a new flight the next day
United assigned them seats 4A and 4B for the short transatlantic crossing but when they got onboard the 25 year old plane for the overnight flight, a crew member told them that one of the seats was no longer available and one of them would have to be downgraded.The reason that the seat couldn’t be used wasn’t because it was broken but because it had been reserved for a pilot to use for rest during the flight… and what you might not know is that seat 4A and 4B on United’s 757 fleet is regularly used for pilot rest.
Unlike some long-haul aircraft, the Boeing 757 was never designed with dedicated crew rest facilities as it was primarily intended to be used on shorter international hops that didn’t require bunk facilities to comply with federal flight crew rest regulations.The problem, however, is that United sometimes needs to ‘augment’ its flights with more than two pilots. In these cases, the third and potentially fourth pilot will occupy the reserved Business Class seats 4A and 4B.
Thankfully, this isn’t an issue that crops up all the time but United generally blocks out 4A and 4B from being booked until 60 hours prior to departure. At that point, the airline should have a good idea whether the flight crew will be ‘augmented’ and if only two pilots are due to operate the flight, then seats 4A and 4B will be released to book for passengersIn this case, it looks like the 4A and 4B had been unblocked within the 48-hour window, allowing the couple to be booked into seats but, for whatever reason, the flight got an extra pilot assigned and then one of these seats was needed for crew rest.Of course, if the flight isn’t fully booked in Business Class, United can simply reassign an affected passenger to a different seat but when the cabin is full, the only option is to downgrade the passenger who was meant to sit in 4A or 4B.
What’s really frustrating, though, is the fact that there are few consumer protection regulations which will help someone caught up in this kind of situation.
Under US rules, the couple has little redress and would only potentially be eligible for compensation if they were completely denied boarding. That being said, United should, at the very least, offer to repay the fare difference between the Business Class seat and Economy.Consumer aviation rules in the United Kingdom are generally stronger than in the US, although changes brought about by Brexit have exposed a loophole that would negate United from paying compensation.
When the UK left the European Union is adopted its own version of the bloc’s famous airline consumer protection rules, which includes mandatory reimbursement for being downgraded.
In the case of long-haul flights, downgraded passengers are entitled to a refund of 75% of the ticket price, but there’s a very important caveat. Unlike the EU’s version, the rule only kicks in if you are departing the UK on any airline or arriving in the UK on a British or European airline.If the downgrade had occurred from Edinburgh to Washington Dulles, then United would be on the hook for paying compensation, but in this case, British law doesn’t apply, and United doesn’t owe downgrade reimbursement compensation.
It’s important to note that United tries to limit the ability of passengers to book seat 4A or 4B on its 757 fleet in the first place, but you need to be extra careful within the last 60 hours prior to departure when a ‘block’ will be removed on these seats based on the assumption at that time that a third or fourth pilot isn’t operating the flight.