Funny Story: How I held an Arik flight down for over an hour.

I was travelling from Lagos to a certain state in Nigeria to meet with ‘Le boo’. He had gone ahead of me the day before. I arrived early at the airport, purchased my ticket, boarded the aircraft and took possession of ‘my seat’. It was a full flight.

Next thing, a nice looking man approached me and said I was in his seat. I calmly perused my boarding pass and once I confirmed I was in the correct seat assigned to me…

A few people had the same challenge but they were lucky to find empty seats since they boarded in good time.

The brother got nervous and called the hostess. Lady approached me, asked for my boarding pass and said I had to vacate my seat because in her wildest imagination, my seat was assigned after the ‘nice looking man’ had purchased his ticket’. Her explanation being that my seat number was written with ink while the brother’s own was printed. As how??? For what??? For why??? Did I write it myself? Lol.

Brothers and Sisters…

1. I purchased a genuine ticket from the ticketing counter and was assigned a seat (I had title)
2. I boarded the aircraft in good time and took my seat. (I had possession).

How could I give that up without a fight? Where is that done? I told the hostess that if the aircraft was going to crash, then it would have to crash with me in it, because I wasn’t shifting from that spot; talk less of vacating my seat. Lol

Then the entire cabin was thrown into chaos, some arguing for and others arguing against, and some advising cabin crew to upgrade the passenger to the available seat in ‘business class’ which they refused to do.

Then, armed uniformed men were invited on board the aircraft to try and intimidate me, it did not work.  They invited me to come out for a discussion and I insisted that whatever needed to be discussed had to be done with me remaining in my seat. I suddenly developed a sentimental attachment to my seat. Lol

Infact, I even claimed I had a bad leg and boarded the aircraft on crutches so I couldn’t get up without support.  By this time, they knew they couldn’t win because I was also threatening legal action, so they decided they won’t take off and we all remained on board the aircraft.

Eventually, another young man offered to vacate his ‘economy’ seat and upgrade to the available seat in business class, and that was how we finally departed.

Talk about customer service…