Not to have given up my seat on plane

I can see that argument if there were just a couple of empty seats (or the train was just half-an-hour out of London) but four hours into the journey there were plenty of unreserved seats and also seats where the reserved part of the journey had already been completed.

But @AnonyLonnymouse why don't you consider the young couple with the baby the ones in the wrong? As you say, there were many empty unreserved seats, but they decided to sit in some of the few reserved seats without a reservation themselves. That was the bad behaviour, frankly, not the young woman who wanted to sit in her reserved place.

It's pretty easy to see which seats are reserved - there's a red light above them, or a paper ticket, or a digital display above the seat. I can never understand why people do this when a seat is obviously reserved - is it stupidity or rudeness?

that's ridiculous unless it was the last stop.

umm because they booked the seats they wanted????

A bit of understanding and empathy can go a long way.

By "understanding and empathy", do you mean "giving up the seat you paid for"?

Because if not, I don't see how what you think of the person wanting to swap makes any difference. You can be very understanding and empathetic, but you still don't have to give up your seat for them.

I can see that argument if there were just a couple of empty seats (or the train was just half-an-hour out of London) but four hours into the journey there were plenty of unreserved seats and also seats where the reserved part of the journey had already been completed.

Without giving away my exact journey, the geography of it was such that there were likely to be far more people disembarking than joining the train from that point onwards.

The problem with the 'oh I've taken your train seat but no problem because there are plenty of other vacant seats' means that when you lettuce like take a random seat and the the rightful owner of the seat boards the train later on, you're screwed

they were flying together and deliberately booked their seats in such a way as to obstruct others from booking either a single seat on that row

How were they doing that? In a row of three, there is a middle seat. Booking aisle & window doesn't stop someone booking the middle seat. No-one was being obstructed.

Hmmmm re cancelled flights. Why is it the other passengers' problem?

I am not saying it is the other passengers’ problem. I am saying that the assumptions about passengers getting on with no prebooked seat are often wrong and the sense of entitlement to be rude and cold is uncalled for in many cases. A bit of understanding and empathy can go a long way.

I've <touch wood> luckily never had a flight cancelled

That explains a lot. You need to experience it to understand how stressful it can be.

Flight Attendants recurring seat swapping drama nightmare! You’re perfectly correct tho, the other lady should have paid to sit next to her family if she really needed to sit next to them.

Yeah, if I can find the time to file for compensation. But that doesn’t help the immediate issue when you are in the middle of travel.

I do think it's quite rude to book 2 seats leaving the one in the middle. Everyone knows you were hoping to have the row to yourselves and don't want the middle seat person there, and even if you're not "chatting" as such, you won't have been silent the whole flight. It is awkward to be that person in the middle.

No you don't have to swap, but I don't think you behaved particularly considerately either.

When people book train tickets in advance and get a cheaper fare the seat number usually comes with the ticket and on the ticket is written ‘only valid for that seat’.

Yup that’s happened to us 2. Prebooked business class seats, ended up in economy with a partner airline scattered all over the plane 24 hours later. Thankfully lap infant DS and I were given a window, DH and DD aisles, and the middle and aisle of my row weren’t together. So the chap next to me was thrilled to not sit in a middle and next to a baby so happily took DD’s aisle a few rows up and the women in the aisle seat on our row was also very happy to move away from 2 kids and take DH’s aisle a couple of row’s behind. It was pretty stressful though, especially as it was a 10 hour night flight so I didn’t feel ok with my 5YO being next to strangers. And the airline were very unhelpful.

Then the airline should refund you the fee you paid to reserve the seat you wanted.

It is physically impossible for everyone to pay for and get their ideal choice of seat in the finite space of a fully occupied aeroplane.

Of course single travellers can book any seat that they like. In many ways they are the most flexible passenger for an airline to accommodate. But the OP and her companion were not single travellers - they were flying together and deliberately booked their seats in such a way as to obstruct others from booking either a single seat on that row or a family of four from sitting in a 3 + 1 configuration. Someone in the early part of the thread described it as a ‘dick move’, and I think they are pretty much right.

No I am not single, although sometimes I travel by myself, and describing my post where I suggested that it doesn’t do any harm to be flexible sometimes (if you can) as ‘discriminatory’ really is a bit of a reach!

To put this in another context, I was on an Intercity Train the other day and a couple got on with a small baby, about 6-8 months. They had things for the baby set out on the tray tables and were happily passing him between them in a pair of seats. It was a 5+ hour journey. I don’t think they had twigged about seat reservations etc.

Much later on in the journey (4 hours in) a young woman got on and, despite there being empty seats in over half the carriage, began asking the couple to move as one of the seats was reserved for her.

Yes, ‘seat reservations’, ‘right’ and ‘choice’ were all on on her side but again it was a ‘dick move’ and I wondered if the couple being black had anything to do with it. They were dismayed at her request and really didn’t want to move all their things and their small baby at that late stage in the journey.

I was sitting across the aisle and promptly offered to move so that she could sit in my own seat. I really had no desire whatsoever to sit next to her, but I could see that it would solve the problem. The mum gave me a grateful look when they got off an hour later, at which point the young woman promptly moved into her ‘rightful’ seat.

By all means exercise ‘choice’ but there are times when being a bit flexible (if you can) is the right thing to do.

I have nothing more to say on this topic, apart from that I suspect the days of being able to book a window plus an aisle on the same booking are numbered, as the airlines are likely to put a stop to it sooner or later!

Hmmmm re cancelled flights. Why is it the other passengers' problem? Take it up with the airline.

I've <touch wood> luckily never had a flight cancelled, but I do remember a really horrible train trip from the Midlands to London. I had a reserved seat at a table as I had a mountain of paperwork to go over for the meeting I was going to in London. The train before me had been cancelled, and when I got to my reserved seat, there was already someone sitting in it, who refused to budge - because HER train had been cancelled. So MY reservation was taken. When I protested, one of her travelling companions called me a string of rude names (they were all dressed in suits, not drunks!).

People can be knobs, sometimes.

but surely people can see that everyone can’t ‘make the choice’ and book/pay to avoid middle seats

There seems to be wilful disregard for the many passengers who get bumped from cancelled flights to their flight. This has happened to me several times. I book and pay to select a window seat over the wing. My flight is cancelled, I am rebooked onto the next flight but I don’t get to keep my seat…oh no..I get whatever the airline gives me and it is almost always a middle seat.

So even though I paid for a window seat, I don’t get what I paid for. Or if travelling with family- we lose all the seats we paid for and we are split up.

You’d think with people having travelled even if their flight has never been cancelled that they would be aware that flights do get cancelled. What do they think happens to the hundreds of passengers booked onto different later flights? Chances are every flight you are on will have people/families who are there because their flight was cancelled- along with their prebooked and paid for seat preferences.

The attitudes these days are grim. I used to feel comfortable asking to swap seats when being split up from my DC or DP due to our flight being cancelled but the number of people who give you ‘stone cold stares’ or think you have fabricated ‘a sob story’ or are ‘cheeky cheapskate fuckers’ is disheartening. I don’t ask anymore. People have gotten extremely rude and the forgetting all about flights being cancelled is part of that.

Individual choice for everyone would be fine in an infinitely large plane, but surely people can see that everyone can’t ‘make the choice’ and book/pay to avoid middle seats, otherwise (apart from groups of three) those seats would become largely redundant and useless to the airline.

Of course people realise there isn't an infinite number of seats. That's why you pay to reserve the ones you want. Yes, it means later bookers might not get them; late bookers might not get a seat at all and have to take another flight. That's how it is with finite resources.

but surely people can see that everyone can’t ‘make the choice’ and book/pay to avoid middle seats, otherwise (apart from groups of three) those seats would become largely redundant and useless to the airline.

What do you mean people ‘can’t’? They can and do.

If people want to fly, they’ll even take the middle seat if they have to.

Your implication that solo travellers should just take what they’re given and disregard their desire for an aisle or window seat is pretty discriminatory.

Are you single?

Solo travellers make up 35% of travellers. Airlines won’t want to discriminate against them.

Individual choice for everyone would be fine in an infinitely large plane, but surely people can see that everyone can’t ‘make the choice’ and book/pay to avoid middle seats, otherwise (apart from groups of three) those seats would become largely redundant and useless to the airline.

Or should airlines remove the middle seat for half the rows and put up the price for just those rows by 50%? After all, those middle seats are so unpopular…

I was booked on a flight last week and deliberately didn’t choose a seat because I was flying alone, it was a short journey and I was happy to make it easier for groups by slotting in anywhere. I was flying for leisure, had no particular needs to consider - why not be a bit flexible if it would help a family, a nervous flyer or someone with mobility needs to pick their preferred seats?

A plane is a very tight space with a lot of people’s needs to consider. Booking an awkward configuration of seats (possibly in the hope of making it difficult for someone else to take the empty seat) really doesn’t help the world at large, however much it might be your ‘choice’ to do so.

I agree with others. Clearly the system allows passengers to book exactly the seats they want for a price. This comes with privilege of being socially inconsiderate at the same time.

I completely agree with this. No I don't think you were unreasonable not to move, but I think you were a bit unreasonable to book those seats in the first place. But that's more of a socially polite consideration rather than a must, given the system has now been created which allows you to do this and this scenario to occur. But you were under no obligation to move having booked and paid for your seat and she equally could have booked and paid to reserve a specific seat.

I certainly wouldn't expect someone who had paid to move seats. The only time 8 have ever asked was coming home on our last trip, my son was very sick in the airport before getting on the plane and still feeling unwell. I only asked as I didn't want him to have to climb over 2 people to get to the aisle for the toilet. Fortunately they were very understanding. I sat in the middle seat and he got the window seat.

I fly quite a lot and always book an aisle seat because that's my preference. Most people wouldn't actively choose a middle seat so often the person I'm flying with will choose a window seat as that's their preference.

I'm an adult so I don't need to sit right next to someone I know, but don't want to have someone either side of me as I feel hemmed in. So I don't care that there's a stranger sat between us as it's not a social event. I sit and read.

I wouldn't move for any reason. Everyone has the same opportunity to choose and pay for a specific seat.

BA used to be free to even quite lowly “elites”/those with really basic tier point status within 48/24 hours out from departure until very recently…a small handful of short haul flights a year was enough to get you free choice - now it’s pay or suck up what you’re given.

To address another point that was made upthread I agree this simply isn’t a case of the airlines extracting yet more cash…it’s one way of keeping the basic fare down, or even providing real cheapies for some.