ATTN!! Delta continually separates gay couple

[brooklynite]

41. Can I ruin your conspiracy theory for you?

First, I actually read the story, rather than just reacting to the group outrage. Did you notice the part about someone getting an upgrade? Well, that means the author is a Medallion frequent flyer. Let me therefore explain something. Delta has three classes of service: coach, economy comfort and first. Premium frequent flyers are eligible for upgrades from Coach to either EC or First. EC are obviously more likely. However, seating in EC is the same as coach: 3 and 3, and if seats are available for upgrade, they're not usually together. The computer assigns them automatically when upgrades are issued, and there's nothing the gates agent can do at that point because all the other seats have been been filled at the same time, and the seats you were in have been automatically filled with standby customers, so you can't switch back. This has been a known problem with Delta's computers for a year or so.

The alternative theory seems to be that someone at Delta who could manipulate seat reservations managed to come across the author's name amongst tens of thousands of daily passenger reservations AND knew who he was AND decided to change seating just to be annoying. Which is more likely.