Flight attendant stops passengers from moving to extra legroom seats by removing the seat cushions

Airlines have come up with numerous ways to make an extra buck to improve their bottom line. One of those is offering customers the possibility to reserve seats with more legroom, but for a price of course.

Many passengers will just forgo the extra price figuring that once onboard that they can just move to an open roomier seat without having to fork over the extra cash. However, while they tolerated the practice in the past, airlines are cracking down on it these days.

Flight attendant stops passengers from moving to extra legroom seats by removing the seat cushions

“Is American Airlines the new spirit of the sky?” a post began by asking on Threads. Johnny Jet picked up on the story and video shared by Crystal Summerz who said she was on a flight where the flight attendant had to resort to what may or may not be considered a little drastic after passengers didn’t heed his message.

“A passenger went to sit in these empty seats. No one was using the six empty seats. The flight attendant said he needed to move because they were $150,” she related. “Someone else went to sit there and told the same thing. An announcement was made not to sit in the seats,” Summerz continued the story. However, that was not the end.

“Two more times ppl went to sit there because it was six seats open, and he literally tore the cushions off,” she explained with a smiley emoji crying with laughter.

Apparently, the flight attendant had had one too many buttons pushed. “Once we departed they said if you leave anything on, you will be returning to the USA,” she added.

It’s not surprising that passengers would want to make use of the empty seats to get a little extra room, especially if the flight were fully booked. American Airlines “Main Extra Cabin” seats have at least 5 inches of extra legroom according to Johnny Jet.

Moving people to four of the six seats, which are configured in a 3 x 3 layout, putting two in aisle seats and two in the window seats, could open space in four middle seats in rows further back. This would make it a more pleasant flight for all he explains.

However, it could be bad for business just giving them away for free he points out. Those that had paid for the other Main Extra Cabin seats might feel a bit irked that they had to pay while someone else got them for nothing. Those that coughed up the $150 might not do so again in the future hoping they get to be the lucky ones next time.

One suggestion that he offers to alleviate the problem is giving passengers some kind of option to pay for them at the last minute. View From The Wing points out that crewmembers at other airlines have the ability to upsell open seats to passengers, “which is a lost revenue opportunity” for American as they haven’t made that possible, yet. “The airline is very careful about making IT investments,” writes Gary Leff.