Lily held the two boarding passes at shoulder height and asked, “Ma’am, why does your boarding pass say 24B?”

The woman had been sitting on her own boarding pass. It had slipped from her coat pocket when she spread her belongings across our seats. Lily had picked it up after I left and discovered that it assigned the woman to seat 24B, a middle seat near the rear galley. There had never been a double booking. The airline hadn’t made a mistake. The woman had simply walked down the aisle, found two empty premium seats, and claimed them. She had even confidently told the flight attendant that the system had assigned two passengers to 12A. The attendant, Bex, checked both passes, then calmly asked the woman to come with her. The woman was moved to 24B, where she remained for the rest of the flight.