I'm a very tall man (6'4") and always have trouble with a lack of legroom on flights (even JetBlue).
A few years ago I was adventurous, and frustrated -- there were no seats left on the flight that it would let me reserve online. Yet for this particular airline, it showed that the exit row seats were available, but clicking on them lead to an alert that you could not book them online: You had to do so at the airport.
I decided to look at the code making the seat selection calls, submitted my seat selection for that seat anyway -- and wallah! I was granted a ticket with that exit row seat. Had no problem going through security or boarding.
Haven't tried it since - as most airlines now charge extra for those seats, and its not such an easy hack.
wallah does indeed mean 'By God!' in arabic but it's used as an assertion of veracity. In this context the poster obviously meant to say voila and like you I've also seen this wallah variation of it creeping in recently.
Retro-validation appeals to me, so it could be interpreted as:
and - truly, I swear by God I am not making this up - I was granted a ticket with that exit row seat
In English, it's an old-fashioned idiom that a Robert Louis Stevenson character might have used. But English-speakers tend not to swear by God much these days - indeed, "swearing" usually means profanity.
The French pronunciation of voila is akin to "fwalla", with the f/v sound being relatively subtle. At any rate it's not as amusing as misspelling it as viola.
Exit row seats are special in that the ground crew need to see that you are physically capable of operating the door. If you were handicapped in anyway, and I've seen people request so they have more space for their oxygen bottle, the cabin crew would have to move you to a different seat. On a full flight it can be tough to play musical chairs.
Wow - didn't realize this thread would turn into a dissection of my use of 'Wallah' -- which I didn't even consciously realize I use (nor what it really meant to the degree analyzed here). You learn something new every day. Thanks HN!
A few years ago I was adventurous, and frustrated -- there were no seats left on the flight that it would let me reserve online. Yet for this particular airline, it showed that the exit row seats were available, but clicking on them lead to an alert that you could not book them online: You had to do so at the airport.
I decided to look at the code making the seat selection calls, submitted my seat selection for that seat anyway -- and wallah! I was granted a ticket with that exit row seat. Had no problem going through security or boarding. Haven't tried it since - as most airlines now charge extra for those seats, and its not such an easy hack.