Economy delight seats used by everyone

A good friend of mine recently flew to Orlando with her husband and two kids. They paid quite a sizeable sum for economy delight as opposed to classic when booking.

However, on both legs of the trip the planes were not rather empty and it is claimed that normal economy passengers were swapping seats to the economy delight ones which were empty.

I can appreciate why she would be annoyed after paying so much money, and whilst the extra legroom seat by itself doesn’t constitute the entire ‘delight’ offering, it is certainly a part of it.

I’m imagining this kind of thing Should have been brought up on the actual flight with crew, but out of curiosity is there anything she can do? And has anybody has ny similar experience?

the time to have raised it was if and when this happened. Usually VS staff are pretty good in making sure people don't sit in seats they are not entitled to.

Though it should be noted that the 'delight' seats are mostly all at the side of the plane - the middle section seats are generally not extra leg room and it is perhaps this is there the 'claim' gets confused.


see the various seat maps on the VS site where the 'delight' seats are marked

https://www.virginatlantic.com/gb/en/vi ... fleet.html

When I've been on quiet flights in the past (before the days of economy delight, but can't see why it would be different now), the cc have been very specific in saying that people are free to move to another seat in economy to spread out, but must pay an additional fee on-board if they want to use the extra legroom seats.

I've experienced the same as well where the crew have stopped people moving to ELR seats without paying extra. I had an exit seat on one flight that was pretty full, with an empty seat next to me and they wouldn't let anyone move into it without paying onboard.

This 3 types of Economy is about as workable/realistic as the Brexit negotiations it would seem & causing just as much annoyance from people!

Why?

Extra legroom seats are nothing new. People moving to a vacant seat they perceive as better than theirs are nothing new (whether they know they should pay for it or not).

Can’t see any connection with the recent Y product changes though.