The processing of seat assignments on a flight can absolutely be a confusing mess, particularly to those who fly less frequently. For one thing, less frequent flyers are more likely to get downgraded because they don’t hold status with the airline. And secondly, because they fly less they are less likely to understand why they are being moved to a different seat than the one they reserved.

Then again, the reason behind a seat reassignment isn’t always clear even to those who fly all the time.

Sandra O is a somewhat infrequent flyer who, on two recent Delta flights, was the victim of two unfavorable seat reassignments. She is curious to know if it has become policy on Delta to move the infrequent flyers to the back of the bus so as to free up the best seats for the passengers with status.

Fellow travelers suggest equipment changes, or perhaps the preferences of an Air Marshall, are more likely reasons for the seat change.

And then, without warning, a full-blown analogy battle breaks out:

It feels like going to a restaurant, ordering steak, then being served up hamburger and being told to eat it or leave. ~Sandra O

what you paid for was beef, and you requested that it be served in the form of steak. Unfortunately the airline only had hamburger available at the time. You still got the beef that you paid for, just not your first choice on how it was prepared. ~JimGinAtlanta

Not bad, but they’re just getting warmed up:

what I paid for was steak, not hamburger. The steak was available, but a patron of the restaurant who dined there more frequently than I, showed up after my order was placed and asked for steak. Restaurant decided to give my steak to their “better” customer. However, they didn’t come back to me and say, “sorry, no more steak.” Instead they placed the hamburger in front of me at a time when my options for dining elsewhere were limited and impractical. ~Sandra O

Oh snap! You can practically hear the crowd reacting to that one.

Then another battler, kyshel, jumps into the fray (I expect the judges will disqualify kyshel, as this is clearly against the rules, but as I’m sure you are all aware things can get out-of-control pretty quickly in a heavyweight analogy battle):

If she bought beef and expected steak, likely another pax bought before her tkt and w/equip change, they got “her” seat, so they got filet mignon and she got sirloin.

…

She doesn’t understand that she is not guaranteed the seat chosen on ANY airline. So she paid for beef–other pax got steakburger and she got hamburger. (they paid, too, but sooner?)

Huh?

This battle just went from “8-Mile”-style back to SkyMiles-style. Nearly on par now with the Hiphopopotamus (a somewhat forced reference, but I’m a big fan of Flight of the Conchords – New Zealand’s fourth most popular folk parody duo – so I’m going to force it anyway):

And the winner of the seat assignment analogy battle is … read the thread in its entirety and judge for yourself: Is Delta changing seats assignments at the gate?