[trp]

Thanks for your thoughts. Burgers.....Regarding the folks who "paid a significant amount of cash"....not necessarily true. In fact, as I was in the middle of the electronic check-in process, I was asked if I wanted to upgrade to business class for $150, which is (in my opinion) NOT a significant amount of cash considering I paid $1600 for my coach seat. Of course, once I came to the realization that I would be sitting in HALF a coach seat with 30% of my body being covered by another passenger's torso for 15 hours, I was kicking myself that I didn't pay for the cheap upgrade. By the way, I even mentioned to the purser that I would be happy to pay the additional charge, but he said that they couldn't execute the transaction on board the plane.

Also, remember that many times, passengers are upgraded to business and 1st class due to overbooking situations and miles. It happens all the time, so not everyone up there has actually paid much (or any) money for it.

Thanks for your support, jimworks. I, too would like to think that other passengers, regardless of which section they are sitting in, would not be upset that a remedy had been found in a situation like this. I refuse to believe that human beings loose all empathy when they sit in large seats in the front of a plane.