Member-only story
You’ve Checked In Online and Printed Out Your Boarding Pass. Think You’re Good to Go?
Think Again.
For my last flight from Philly to California. I checked in online, printed out my boarding pass, got to the airport in plenty of time and got through security with no problems.
As I boarded the plane, the gate agent scanned my boarding pass and gave me the nod to continue. I quickly found Seat 6C and settled in.
A few minutes later, somebody else found Seat 6C. A young man named Gene. When we compared our boarding passes, it turns out that we both had Boarding Passes for the same seat.
That’s not supposed to happen.
The flight attendant checked her records and told me that Gene was “supposed to” have that seat. Gene, as it turns out, had checked in and been assigned 6C after arriving at the airport.
“How can he have been assigned a seat that I already had a boarding pass for?” I asked. “And how does his Boarding Pass, which he got 20 minutes ago, take precedence over mine, which I got 20 hours ago?”
“Seat 16D is empty,” was her response. “Can you sit there?”
16D was an aisle seat in economy, which is what I’d paid for. And I am not a jerk.
