Thread: Sometimes I want to strangle nonrevs.

Seriously? Find out who they (the party of 4, at the very least) are, find out who their supervisors are, and tell your manager. They should report it to the employee's superiors (whether the employee was there or not, the employee needs to make nonrev etiquette perfectly clear). It's one thing when they screw up, you put them in their place, and life goes on. But you already told them not to take that seat. They've flown how many times before? They should know damn well that they can't put kids that age in the exit row, period. The group of 3 could MAYBE be forgiven, if the plane was just about boarded already (but ideally they really should wait until the plane takes off and see if those seats are still there). On our system, seat assignments are not very well-planned by default, and agents don't always try to seat pax together.

Bottom line, nonrevs are supposed to take no more work for any agent other than clearing them and boarding them like any other passenger. They are a guest on that flight, whether it's their own airline or not. Just like you don't take your host's antique doll on display and give it to an infant daughter to play with, you also don't get in the way of an already tough job.