Not to have given up my seat on plane

Air France offered this option once - usually my flights are full though.

You are clearly.

you've just reiterated the point.

"fairly often" does not = always.
"outside of school holidays" = when do you think the majority with children fly?
"a few empty seats" does not = a lot

I was making the point that no one except an idiot would EXPECT the middle seat would be unoccuppied to answer the people saying that two people booking window and aisle MUST be doing it in the EXPECTATION that the middle seat would be empty. I was saying that most people are just choosing their own seats for their own comfort without that expectation because most flights are typically very full. They are businesses aiming for profit and schedule accordingly. They don't want planes taking off with lots of empty seats. If that happens they reduce the flight frequency or capacity. Sure it may be a bonus in that situation if the middle seat is not taken but it would be rare.

The fact the middle seat may be occassionally means that it remains a risk and a gamble not an expectation.

This thread highlights what mugs we were on a 9 hours flight we were on from Miami.

As it was an overnight and we wanted legroom to stretch out a bit, we paid extra for bulkhead seats. When we checked in, we were asked if we would mind giving up our seats for a family travelling with a baby. I agreed because I was, on hindsight, a soft touch and felt it must be tough travelling with a small infant.

I actually wished I had been much more hard nosed and said only if there’s something in it for us. We’d booked the seats months in advance and unless the family were travelling at short notice for an emergency, they probably had the opportunities as us to choose their seats. We ended up stuck in the usual cattle class configuration.

I’m afraid I wouldn’t be as accommodating next time and would stick to my guns much more defiantly.

It’s not awkward unless they are talking across all the time. OP says they had headphones in.

Who cares about social norms.

If one person likes the window seat and the other likes the aisle so be it. It’s up to them as they paid.

We always pay for extra legroom because my DH has a medical issue, however because I’m short people always ask to swap seats. Pisses me off because no, we paid for these seats to ensure we get them.

We’ve had to put up with some right shitty people over the years because they are too tight to pay.

Well either pay up or shut up, if you can’t afford the payment you probably can’t afford the holiday so stop getting into debt and stay at home!

Ah, plane seat threads, the airborne equivalent to parking CFs.

Different seats literally do have a value, as shown by the fact that people are willing to pay more for some. The exit rows with more legroom obvious make a big physical difference to some so they can command a higher premium. If you need to go to the loo a lot or regularly walk around because of DVT risk, you'll want an aisle seat in your group. Middle seats if you're travelling alone can risk being sandwiched between two large strangers.

If none of these factors have value to you then you can save money by taking whatever's left after others have picked.

That's not being nice, that's being daft. Why go to the trouble to book a seat if you're going to let anyone else sit in it? Surely if you're that "nice" you don't book, you let everyone else get on first and then just sit in whichever seat is left?

I book and pay for seats as close to the front row as possible so I’m booking for location in the plane as well as seat preference, my DP just sits where I’m happiest, if he ends up in the middle then he does it for me so I can be next to him and have the window seat.

Same here, I prefer a window seat and preferably not over the wing. DH always has the middle seat.

but don't pretend that your booking wasn't deliberately awkward!

Whats the relevance of this? The airline allowed it. It made them extra ££. If people can do it then they will. It’s pretty meh, the person in the middle didn’t pay the extra, they chose that option (quite sensibly imo)

I think I may have started this and it is probably true but if airlines allow
to pay to book seats then it will happen.

It’s called an opinion, we all have rhem. And it’s still mine 👍🏻

You would only think that if you were someone who does this yourself. No-one wants a middle seat but flights these days are often full.
I always book an aisle seat when traveling, if my husband and I are traveling together we book adjacent aisle seats.

Wow.

The rudeness on this site really is ridiculous.

There fairly often are free seats outside school holidays. The last flight I took even had a few in the school holidays.

Who’s the idiot now?

Oh maybe because the middle seat is the least comfortable?
People are just cheeky, cheap and disorganised.

We've had this happen twice on our honeymoon. First time a couple were say in our seats and wanted to stay because they were on their honeymoon, dh was going to agree till I told them to shift because so were we! Female of said couple kept glaring at me until I told her she was CF and it would be a shame if her face got stick like that.

Second time was a family who wanted to all be in the same row. Mum was with 2 kids, dad was 3 separated by the aisle. We booked our seats specifically and this time dh said no. Their seats were one row behind us anyway so not as if the kids were being split from parents as dad was still sat with them.

We always book our seats as our kids are little and can't sit without us. Dh would rather do it for free at early check in but I'd rather not take the stress that we could be split from one of the kids. I just see it as a cost we have to absorb.

They deliberately separate everybody to get them to pay.

So you'd pay twenty to thirty quid for a stranger to choose your seat?

This idea that a seat on an aeroplane has intrinsic and measurable value is wild. It's a plane. If you've got a ticket you've got a seat. It's not like you'll stand all the way to Australia if you don't pay extra.

I'm a nice person and wouldn't have. To each their own

You'd expect someone who had paid for their reservation to move for you when you hadn't? Is that what one should do to others?

Or you'd pay for a reservation that was essentially useless since you'd give it up if someone wanted it?

They didn't give a reason, mainly because they didn't reply at all

But then, as I learned with several other flights using them, there was little point in paying for a seat anyway as too many of them were broken

@Caketea but the other passenger doesn’t have your saintly attitude does she?

But why move when you wanted that seat and paid for it? That’s being a martyr, there’s no reason to move that trumps her own reason to stay in her paid for seat.

I’m just a nice person and would have moved. ‘Do to others as you’d have them do to you’ type thinking.

Even if they did hope nobody would sit in the middle seat...so what? Someone did, they accepted it. Better than expecting someone to leave the seat they paid for to please you!

Prize idiots!