Booking a bassinet seat

[wanderer_au]

...strikes me as being a bit cheeky if you are flying solo sans enfant, just to get a seat at the front if you're flying economy. But if for whatever reason the seat needs to be taken off you (lots of parents on that flight, etc), does it increase your chances of an upgrade, or does it prompt the airline to send you straight to some middle seat hell near the loo?

Just asking for a friend.

 

[harvyk]

Whenever I've been moved from my carefully chosen seat it's always been to a better seat. Whilst I'm sure "in-class" downgrades happen, I suspect they are rare. Lest we forget that the airline already knows what are preferable seats for a pax to fly in, and if you're picking seats your either paying for the privilege or have status, in either case you're a step above the average Y pax in the airlines eyes.

 

[JohnK]

I would expect a move to better seat not a middle seat down the back.

 

[ozbeachbabe]

QF & VA only have bassinets on the widebody aircraft ie the A330's, B744 & A380 (QF) & A330 & B777 (VA) not on B737 aircraft.

Not sure what VA do with regard to allocation of bassinet row seats but on QF international flights any unallocated bulkhead and bassinet rows would be blocked off by airport staff when the do the flight editing 2-3 days prior to flight departure then allocated them on the day to families with infants.

Domestically WP's are able to allocated bassinet rows at the time of reservation which could be weeks or months ahead as these seats are not blocked. Although families are able to ring up and request a bassinet row seat however no specific seat allocation is confirmed ahead of time.

It's not beyonds the realms of possibility to find that all bassinet seats are pre-booked by WP or even SG pax meaning no parent travelling with an infant would be unable to get a bassinet on that flight without the cabin crew asking the pax already in the bassinet seats to move and not all of them will want to.