Originally Posted by duvie

I honestly don’t know if you care to interpret this any other way than the union is selling you out, but this was already happening and completely legal:

I was settling into my middle seat from Chicago to San Fran, thinking about motorcycle parts I could buy with my new found money… The gate agent came on board and gave me a new ticket. I told him I was comfortable where I was, and he replied “well you can sit wherever you want, but the system is going to show you in your new seat“

as someone who has sat reserve for a lot of his UAL time, the middle seat provision has been very kind to my checkbook (lots of pairing repair with DHs).​​​​ however, something happened about two years ago, and the system got smart enough to identify deadheading pilots and push them out of middle seats whenever it could. Often I would check in for a flight and have a middle seat assigned, but by the time I scanned my boarding pass, I would’ve been pushed to a new (non middle) seat