United First Class Passenger Forced To Give Up Seat For Unaccompanied Minor

Is it fair game to expect you to surrender your preferred first class seat so that a teenage unaccompanied minor “can remain in the sight” of a flight attendant? One Global Services member seated in first class was not happy with his treatment on a recent United Airlines flight.

Man Moved From First Class Seat To Accommodate Unaccompanied Minor On United Airlines Flight

A Live And Let’s Fly reader who is a member of United’s invite-only Global Services tier for big spenders shared his story with us.

• He was traveling on an Embraer E-175 on a United Express flight operated by Mesa
• He had selected seat 1A
• Upon boarding, he found his seat was occupied by a teenage girl who looked about 14 years old
• When he told her that she was in his seat, the flight attendant interjected that she had been moved into that seat because she was an unaccompanied minor
• He was directed to seat 2C (the configuration in first class is 1-2 so he went from having a private seat with extra legroom to a seat with someone next to him and less space)
• There was no apology or any sort of gratitude; he was just ordered to move even though he had specifically chosen that seat
• He was also told that if the cabin had been full, he would have been downgraded so that the unaccompanied minor could fly first class in seat 1A, because the flight attendant had to keep her in her “line of sight”
  • The E-175 has two flight attendants onboard…
• A gate agent came onboard for an unrelated matter and when he expressed his surprise at being moved without even asking, she turned it on him and accused him of “attacking a little girl”

Let’s talk about “the rules” but also what should happen in situations like this. According to United’s contract of carriage, specific seat assignments are not guaranteed and he was accommodated in first class. No harm, no foul?

Not so fast. I see a number of failures here that I think justify his annoyance. First, why should an unaccompanied minor force another passenger to move seats? Does a 14-year-old–or any child for that matter–really need a “solo” seat if their parents or guardians deem them fit enough to travel alone? Is a 14-year-old really a “little girl?”

Side note: the canard about free upgrades to first class for unaccompanied minors is false.

And how rude it is just to take the seat and not even tell him as he boarded? Here’s how United should have handed it if it really did have to move him:

Sir, I’m so sorry but we need your seat for a child traveling unaccompanied. I’m moving you back one row, still in first class, and do apologize. We thank you for your Global Services status and for choosing United. We appreciate your flexibility and I’ll take great care of you onboard.

For the record, though, I don’t think he should have been moved in the first place…

CONCLUSION

Like so many things in life, it’s often not about the ask, but how you are asked. Sure, he was moved to an inferior seat, but it’s really not about the specific seat within first class. Rather, it’s about moving him without telling him and then getting upset at him when he acted surprised. That’s not “Good leads the way.”