First class flights are one of those things that people always seem to still look at as a status symbol of some kind, in reality you are still stuck on a bus with wings attached to it but if you got the seat fair and square you should be able to enjoy it.
Personally, I have never paid for a first class seat but I did get one by sort of accident. There was a flight that I was scheduled to take when I was in the Navy that got delayed by a good portion of a day and the airline as it turned out had a direct flight to where my parents lived at the time.
When I got the notice that my original flight was cancelled and the next one wasn’t going to be leaving until much later in the day I got put on a direct flight with a first class seat as a way of saying sorry.
Probably the last time that ever happened, an airline saying sorry and meaning it.
That being said, if you came across it fair and square you should be able to enjoy it
This is so funny but so infuriating! Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee apparently makes it a habit of bumping first class passengers on flights. She might think twice before doing it again after the angry woman she bumped took photos of Lee enjoying the seat the passenger paid for. Ouch!
Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) in seat 1A the one I paid for dearly, and the one United gave to her without my consent or knowledge! Fellow congressman on same flight said she does it repeatedly. @united pic.twitter.com/Q2c6u6B0Yp
— Jean-Marie Simon (@JeanMarieSimon1) December 23, 2017
Jean-Marie Simon was a passenger on a flight from Houston to Washington D.C. and has accused United Airlines of giving her first-class seat to U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee. D-Houston. The flight attendant threatened to remove her from the plane for complaining and snapping a photo of the Houston congresswoman:
A mechanical problem with the plane delayed take-off and after about 50 minutes, she said, passengers were invited to consult with a gate agent about alternative flights.
Simon said she went to the front and snapped a photo of Jackson Lee and told a flight attendant that she knew why she’d been bumped.
In her statement, Jackson Lee said she overheard Simon speaking with an African-American flight attendant and saw her snap the photo.
JACKSON LEE PULLS THE RACE CARD: “Since this was not any fault of mine, the way the individual continued to act appeared to be, upon reflection, because I was an African American woman, seemingly an easy target along with the African American flight attendant who was very, very nice,” Jackson Lee said in the statement. “This saddens me, especially at this time of year given all of the things we have to work on to help people. But in the spirit of this season and out of the sincerity of my heart, if it is perceived that I had anything to do with this, I am kind enough to simply say sorry.”
Simon said Jackson Lee’s statement accused her of racism, adding: “I had no idea who was in my seat when I complained at the gate that my seat had been given to someone else,” she said. “There is no way you can see who is in a seat from inside the terminal.”
PASSENGER THREATENED?
About five minutes after Simon took the photo on the plane, Simon said, another flight attendant sat next her and asked if she “was going to be a problem.”
Simon said she replied that she just wanted to go home.
IS THE $500 VOUCHER EVIDENCE OF WRONGDOING BY THE AIRLINE? WHAT HAPPENED WHEN SIMON ARRIVED AT THE GATE:
“It was just so completely humiliating,” said Jean-Marie Simon, a 63-year-old attorney and private school teacher who used 140,000 miles on Dec. 3 to purchase the first-class tickets to take her from Washington D.C. to Guatemala and back home.
