25 May 2023 , 12:23
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A woman claims her fiancé was forced out of first class by staff who needed to rest.
Danielle Schwab, who goes by the username @watergirl8296 on TikTok, filmed herself sitting on a United Airlines plane during a flight from London Heathrow to Chicago.
The woman said they had booked seats in first class "fair and square" when "all of a sudden, my fiancé, we just got engaged, just got moved to coach.”
Danielle claimed that a flight attendant told them they'd had to move to economy as “part of the crew (had) to sit in first class instead”.
“I understand that the crew works really hard, however, we booked these seats ahead of time and this is not fair,” she continued.
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“This is not customer service. I’m sorry, it’s just not customer service. Like, this is ridiculous.”
In another later video Danielle explained that they had been told that flight attendants take it in turn to sleep when on longer flights, and they usually do so in bunks
“Basically, what we were told is, this is how it works. Flight attendants take turns taking naps in the back of the plane, there’s usually bunks or seats that go out into a bed," she said.
"So, what they were saying is, if a seat is not working … what they did instead was they went ahead and booted four people out of first class, including Mikey.”
Danielle claims she was told it was not a “common practise,” because the plane is supposed to be put “out of service if you don’t have enough seats” for flight crew, but this one wasn't.
As they were getting off the plane a customer service representative for the airline gave them what Danielle's fiancé claimed was a “glorified fast pass”.
“He didn’t upgrade our next flight at all," the unhappy customer said, before claiming another customer had also been moved from first class.
The couple claim a flight attendant moved them to economy (stock photo) (Getty Images)The pair claim that they tried to talk to a number of airline staff, but were repeatedly told to handle the incident online.
In a later video Danielle's father, who claimed to have paid for four first class tickets, said the way they had been treated was "terrible", and that he'd gone for the upgrade so they wouldn't be “stuck back in coach with everybody else”."
“There’s plenty you can do, it’s called customer service,” he said of the apparent lack of action from staff.
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“The customer is always right. You’re taking the side of the employee and making sure they sleep and kicking the customer back into coach. Terrible.”
In the comments the majority of people argued that the family shouldn't have been bumped down, and that they should be given a refund.
“Oh my god @United Airlines this is totally unacceptable. Refund the ticket. IN FULL,” one person wrote.
Another added: “It all makes sense if all the crew rest beds were unable to be moved, but his fare should be refunded for the inconvenience."
A United Airlines spokesperson said: "The seats we normally reserve for crew members to take their required rest breaks weren’t working on this flight, so we unfortunately had to reassign two customers to Premium Plus rather than cancel the flight.
"We understand the customer’s frustration and are refunding the price difference for their seats and giving them each a $1,500 certificate for future travel."