Off to the airport. Managed to pack everything into one carry-on bag for the week, so I strolled up to the little United kiosk for carry-on only.
Well, the good news is that Dave Hill, International Man of Mystery, seems to have dropped off the radar. But the bad news was, the kiosk wouldn’t give me a seat.
It would give me a seat if I was willing to pony up an extra $24 for an Economy Plus seat. But when I declined that, and asked to select a seat …
… no open seats came up.
“Go to the gate to get a seat assignment,” the kiosk indicated, spitting out a Passenger Management Card or some such instead of a boarding pass.
Swell.
No problem getting through security. Went straight to the gate, worried about what it all might mean.
Walked up. They had several boarding passes, already printed. I saw that one had my name on it. I told the lady there that the kiosk had told me I had to visit her for a seat assignment.
“Yeah, what’s with that?” she said, though it was difficult to tell if her irk was feigned or not. “You’re here first — I assume you want the aisle seat?” Instead, it seemed, looking at the two passes she picked up, of a middle seat. Oh, yeah. Four rows further back, but not a middle. Yeah.
She tore up two passes, including my (old) 15B, and handed me a 19D.
End of story?
No, this flight, for unknown reasons, they decided to go with the odd “layered” boarding. In other words, after the Elite Program Members (rattle off a dozen different programs here) got to board, then they boarded all of the windows seats (A and F), then the middle seats (B and E), then finally the (ta-dah!) aisle seats (C and D).
The reason for this is, ostensibly, to spread the wealth, to keep aisle congestion down as people sit themselves the length of the plane, to keep the “excuse me, please get up, I have to get past you to my window seat” stuff down. Fine.
But instead, it means that there’s congestion and movement all up and down the aisle, and the cargo space gets taken first by the window and middle seats, all up and down the plane.
*sigh*
Managed to get on anyway, for an otherwise uneventful flight.
The last couple of times I flew, on American and United, they had the most assinine seating I’ve ever seen.
I don’t fault them for seating First Class and their metal frequent flyers first, but when steerage boarding came around, they loaded up the plane FROM THE FRONT.
I see no sense in that. I wish I didn’t have to fly either of those airlines, but they have the destinations I want to fly.
Awwww….
But we liked the great adventures of DH:IMoM.
Most airlines seem to load from the front — which, yes, makes very little sense.