I am cross, upset and disappointed

Little bit of background, OH and I fly twice a year LHR to NYC to visit family. Needs careful organisation and planning as OH is well into retirement years and more importantly is almost blind.

We’ve had lots of help from VS crew over the years, safety demo (he can’t see crew or watch the video), menu, lots of kindness and understanding.

We fly back tomorrow, Wednesday, overnight from JFK on VS154. Ooh, the new 350, hooray, seats carefully chosen as usual so we are on the A side, immediately behind each other which is much easier for help and reassurance than being opposite. Think about it, opposite means you’re relying on visual clues and he can’t see me.

I booked 5A and 6A months ago and have carefully checked every few days till tonight’s check in when old hands will know in advance, yes, they’ve moved OH across to the other side of the cabin, five rows behind.

Phone call produces apologies, denial of any knowledge of OH’s sight loss (which is not true) and no, so sorry, they can’t move him back, all they can do is put us both in the middle at the back.

Yes I know we all tell newbies that seats are wish list not written in stone, but when you’re trying b****y hard to help an elderly sight-impaired beloved get through the hassles of airports, trust me you don’t need this.

Sorry folks, just needed to let off steam. It was that or burst into tears at my careful plans being wrecked.

Whilst I sympathise with you, I would say that with the new suite, if you’re behind him on the 350 you’re gonna be way behind him
with and you wouldn’t be able to talk to each other or even hear each other in the same way you would in the old seat.

I would argue for what you need from the description above with two sears next to each other in the middle will be much better!

Thanks ColOrd, very helpful to know in advance. I always book seats in the same place, A side, 3/4/5/6, whichever I can get. This means he knows roughly how many steps to take to get to galley/loo whichever comes first, without having to ask for help. He will have to wake me which takes away his independence and introduces anxiety for the future.

He’s worked hard since the dramatic sudden sight loss four years ago (macular degeneration) and values retention of independence.

So I’ve just had a quick look and 6A on the outbound and your inbound 154 are both showing blocked and cannot be assigned. The chances are there’s something inoperative with the seat and it can’t be assigned to a passenger. (Could range from defective IFE, through to wont convert to a bed etc). Given it’s blocked for both outbound and return sectors it tells me it’s not just you have been bumped to give someone their “preferred seat”. Don’t be surprised though if someone does end up in that seat on staff travel though as they can give inop seats (dependant on the condition / safety status of it) to non revenue pax.

Again that all being said, I think you will
find with the 350 you’ll probably enjoy having the two seats together in the middle more and will be able to keep an eye on him and give him that verbal reassurance than you would
have been in the window seats.

I do not know which seats are best on the 350 for your situation, but people move seats and don't show up all the time. So you may still be able to rectify the situation.

I'd use the opportunity to pre-board and have a chat with the FSM. This is something they may well be willing to sort out onboard, but that's last chance saloon. I'd also try at check-in and the Clubhouse.

Whiterose, whilst I am sympathetic to your circumstances and understand that you wish to keep things constant, I would strongly recommend that you stay with the middle seats as the A350 UC seat and cabin is completely different to the rest of the fleet. Any knowledge/experience gleaned from previous aircraft will be useless.

The high backs and herringbone angle of the new seats will make any sort of reassurance and assistance from behind impossible. It is better if you are sitting next to each other in the middle where you can pull back the privacy divider and provide whatever reassurance/assistance is needed.

If you are looking for seat recommendations, I'd suggest 1D and 1G, the position closest to the front galley where the crew hang out on night flights should the OH need help and you're asleep. There are also two restrooms in the front galley. Definitely make sure that the FSM and CSS are aware of your other half's sight impairment.

Safe flight and I hope that you enjoy the new cabin

So I’ve just had a quick look and 6A on the outbound and your inbound 154 are both showing blocked and cannot be assigned.

ColOrd, may I ask, where are you looking to get this info?

ExpertFlyer.

Thank you to all of you for taking the time to help. I intend to raise this at check in, in the CH and with the FSM. It sounds as if it could be an inoperable seat.

I’ll use this as a trial run to see which seats will work best on the 350 for future flights.

Many thanks.

Hi whiterose. Just to add to what ColOrd and joeyc said, a pair of seats in the middle would be the best option. So D and G. There is absolutely no way of communicating if you're both in A seats as you're completely walled off when seated. Also, A-D or G-K will involve some neck craning and a fair amount of yelling across the aisle. I'll see if I can post some pictures to give an idea of the angles.

View from G to K
20191005_111821.jpg (204.54 KiB) Viewed 1619 times

Update. Brilliant FSM on the flight, UC cabin fully occupied. 6A had a defective privacy screen so VS would not allocate to revenue pax. When all pax on board, FSM asked two female pax travelling together in 2D & K if they would change which they were happy to do, thanked profusely by us of course.

Those seats worked very well. Loved the 350, couple of minor moments of “am I Honey Lamb’s understudy ” when my water bottle, stowed as instructed by crew beside my seat fell into the bowels of seat mechanism when I pulled seat forward after take-off and then when the seat wouldn’t lie flat. A VS engineer was on board and sorted both out though seat wouldn’t lie properly flat.

Felt quite cheated that we pulled back right on time and landed 45 minutes early! Quite wanted to continue enjoying the new plane.

I’ll be emailing Crawley Towers to commend the FSM and both our crew members, names and staff numbers given to me for this and also asking how we might avoid being split up in future. I don’t think ticking the special needs box on OH’s FC record will do the trick - that doesn’t cover “please don’t split us up”.

Many thanks for everyone’s help.

Glad it all worked well for you.