Best CF airplane stories

[BreadInCaptivity]

Inspired by another thread.

About 5 years ago we were flying back from the USA. We'd booked Premium Economy seats on Virgin. Configuration is 2-3-2.

Our two late teens were in front of us and we had the 2 seats directly behind. All settled in when a family of 4 embarked with 2 young children (around 5 and 7 at a guess).

They proceed to the 2 seats behind DH and I and start putting their bags down when the mother asked (politely to be fair) if we would mid swapping seats so they could sit together as a family.

Given our two were older (and once headphones were on were not going to be engaging with us) we decided to be nice and said ok.

Can you guess where this is going?

Asked where the other seats were, looking around the PE cabin a bit baffled as it appeared to be full....

Yep - they'd only booked 2 seats in PE and wanted us to take their 2 seats in economy 😂.

Clearly we said, no (with rather incredulous expressions on our face's) and sat back down. Parent then both start calling us selfish (oh the irony) and demanding we move. DH made the point that if sitting together was so important, then booking in the same cabin might be a good idea for the future, but as stands he was sure if they went down to economy the people in the seats next to those they'd booked would be very happy with a free upgrade 😀.

The response from the Father "I'm not giving up a better seat I've paid for"....to which DH deadpanned "I couldn't agree with you more"...at which point DH and I couldn't stop laughing enough to respond further.

Cabin crew eventually had to get involved as the parents had an argument over who was going to sit where. Mother won and spent the first 20 mins of the flight making loud passive aggressive comments to her child about "mean/selfish" people until crew got involved again and told her to pack it in or they'd be moved to economy if they didn't stop harassing us.

Thankfully the rest of the flight was uneventful but DH and I still chuckle about it now and again 😃.

Anyone got any others?

Oh wow that's nuts! I don't know how people find the audacity sometimes.
Ive been lucky to never experience anything that bad because I hate confrontation and I just don't know what I'd do

I think my favourite flight was from Reus to Newcastle. Large family who had been at odds with another large family over the fortnight... we'd booked last minute to join friends but booked seats so that was fine. Second large family had booked seats. Sat down in our seats when first large family arrived and started wanting people to swap. The cabin crew lady said just sit down in your seat then we'll sort it. Next thing we knew, the doors were closed and we'd taken off without any chance to "sort" the seats. The family actually made no noise about it but you could tell they were fuming.

Another family flight to Florida. It was 3-3-3. We'd booked 2 seats and 2 seats. Guy next to Dh complained that he was having to sit one behind the other and it was shocking that they'd not been seated together. Dh recommended that he paid to sit together and he was not amused by it. Funnily return flight, they'd booked seats together.

I once booked and paid for an aisle seat in PE, it was an overnight long haul after a hellish week of work. I was very jet lagged.

The lady next to me suggested, with some presumption, that we should swap seats as I clearly wanted to sleep and she frequently needed the toilet.

I politely said that it wouldn’t work for me, I had paid for and selected this seat and wanted to keep it. And she didn’t need the toilet very much at all in the end, I was up multiple times when she didn’t get up more than once.

It's funny how many people who think it's vital to sit together don't think it's important enough to pre-book the seats....

I bet you'd care if you were being asked to move from a seat you'd booked to one less expensive....

P.s. Not a "plant" long time poster, feel free to check my posting history...

Went away with my DS, DD and her friend. They were in the row behind me and DS. Had a window and middle seat. I didn't realise that a lady boarded, knicked the window seat, and went to 'sleep'. My dd was too embarrassed to say anything to me or her. It was 30 mins before I had realised. I would have given her a talking too if I knew.

Did you actually read the OP?

So if you had paid hundreds of pounds extra to upgrade your seat to Premium Economy, you'd be happy to let someone else have it and go and sit in economy?

Don't think so.

I don’t have any good stories like that. I do find it crazy that people who refuse to pay for a service get pissy when people who have paid refuse to hand it over for free.

People are insane about seats. I was on a twin prop plane from Dublin to Glasgow last week. Hardly worth going above the clouds. Two two seat formation. A woman wasn't sitting next to her husband and mithered the cabin crew (person, slim) for the duration. Cabin person said no he can't sit next to you (seat was empty to be fair) because the plane is balanced for take off but he can join you at cruising height then go back for landing. Oh the shenanigans. Imagine being eight seats away from your husband for 38 minutes. Up and down that miniature plane they went. I've got covid now, not saying it was them but honestly.

The whole swap seats or you're mean thing genuinely baffles me.

If you pay extra for a seat then why is it wrong or mean or petty or thoughtless or unkind to want your seat and not one that is less desirable/comfortable? Give them your seat you meanie.

What is actually happening is you are being asked to pay for a stranger's seat. In what world is that OK to demand?

If I walked up to a stranger and said give me 30, 40, 50+ pounds I'd be told no and nobody would think the stranger mean for saying no to me.

But when it's money already spent in the form of a seat you actually paid extra for, suddenly you are horrible if you don't give the stranger what is, essentially, your cash.

I've asked before and nobody's even been able to explain why it's mean to not give up your money for someone who didn't want to spend theirs.

I do think the problem is having to pay to choose your seat, it does not cost the airline any more to let everyone choose their seats on a first come first served basis. Until mid/late-00s it was perfectly normal to not have to pay for seat choices for anything other than Ryanair/easyjet. It’s part of the race to the bottom that makes air travel so horrible.

Mind you the biggest CF behaviour is the airline industry standard policy of making available for sale more seats than their aircraft has, then trying to bump some people off that flight.

I agree. The fact that it’s just the norm to pay to choose your seat is a big part of the problem. When I’ve just handed BA over 4k for 4 economy seats the idea that I need to pay an extra £200+ for us all to sit together (& that’s the price for the least desirable seats on the plane, try £600+ if you want to be near the front etc) just leaves a bad taste all round.

I think airlines should have included booking your seat as part of the package then offered a discount if people didn't want to book their seat or care where they sat

It's exactly the same thing, obviously, but having to click to say yes you want the discount feels like you're gaining something.

If I ran an airline that's how I'd have spun it.
Click for discounts, not for add-ons.

Oh my ticket costs 1000 but look, if I opt out of picking a seat I can save 50! Hey look, if I don't want that meal/extra baggage/whatever, I can get an additional discount. Yay! I'm saving money!

Ds and I were coming back from Spain. (He was about 12).

I don't pay for sitting together because I don't care but I do Inform the airline I'm ds carer as he's disabled beforehand (so if they don't want to piss off other passengers it's in their best interests to sit us together 😂)

We got given the extra legroom seats. Bit odd as ds wasn't old enough to sit there.

Having worked for many years in the travel industry I was aware of this before the hostess said and I said I was happy to swap with the lady and her dd behind us. They had 3 seats for the 2 of them. And yes - I was chancing my luck but it seems a fair enough trade from my very lucky free upgrade 😂

A man a few rows behind heard and got up and said he wanted to swap. Him and partner would swap. It wasn't fair if I had 3 seats for the 2 of us because the airline had made a mistake etc.

Oh yes - his child who was about ds age would have been left sitting with ds and I so I guess he liked the idea of free childminding.

The air hostess was dithering and could I strongly suspected she was going to give into him. So the lady behind me and me had a quiet chat. Whereby I announced that I - in fact - wanted to keep my extra legroom seat and the 2 behind us were happy for ds to sit there.

Or ...

If the man really wanted to swap with ds I was happy with that.

Obviously his partner wasn't 😂

So we swapped with the 2 woman behind us.

I wouldn't have cared swapping with the man if it wasn't expected I'd be childcare for him and would have been very happy to have a reasonable discussion or leave it to the hostess if he hadn't been so rude and demanding and entitled about it.

In cattle class for a trans Atlantic flight. Steward was asking passengers near us if they would swap seats to allow a family with little children to sit together. Couple near us were really rude and arsy when refusing to even be helpful. We volunteered and the steward upgraded me and DH to seats in premium economy. Result!

Totally agree.

I was sitting in an aisle seat opposite DH on an early morning flight to Greece s few years ago. We hadn’t paid to book seats and just wanted to snooze. Two women arrived and demanded DH move to the window as one of them had an orthopaedic boot. Fine no problem.

they then got really drunk and were incredibly irritating. I snoozed and was relieved when we landed so I could scathe cackling.

BUT…. when pulling my case out of the locker I accidentally pulled out the boot that had been wedged alongside it. Boot conked drunk woman. Cue lots of wailing. I apologised and did a runner. DH was stuck inside for well over an hour while they were dealt with and ambulanced off. Fortunately they didn’t realise he was anything to do with me!

perhaps he should have refused to move.

On a 9 hour flight to the Bahamas there was a family in front of us who were honestly the most annoying people I've ever encountered

You know when people are being really performatively loud? like the want everyone to hear them conversations as they clearly think they're so interesting and entertaining . This was absolutely constant . You could hear it even with earphones on

Not only that but the one directly in front of me who was a young woman prob early mid 20s (probably over excited about doing such a thing as plane travel ). Kept standing up every few minds and leaning on the back of her chair while bellowing away to her family . And she was a big, fat , tall woman the chair itself made an annoying loud squeaky creaky noise similar to a very creaky bed being vigorously shagged on. AND it made it bend ALLL the way back toward me, which kept knocking my tray and was just super annoying

After that hellish flight, I am determined to not fly economy long haul again

Absolute annoying Bastards

LOL serves them right 😝

Got on the plane, with a sleeping 4yo in my arms, and 6yo. Found people sat in our seats (which had been prebooked). Adults, not children... they wanted to sit together and thought they were free (as the plane was still boarding!). Most aggrieved to have to move, but they least had the sense not to argue it when DDs were too young to sit alone. However it took a while as they had unpacked laptops etc already!

Eh, isn't that you being a CF when you know you have caring responsibilities and it could cause issues all because you don't want to book and pay for seats? Why put your DS through that stress?

Awful couple on our flight from Havana to Gatwick. Were adamant they’d booked first class but only had PE tickets (like us). Cabin crew said very sorry, you’ve got PE, you can speak to your travel agent when you land but there’s nothing we can do now. Woman made a huge huge fuss (I think she was pushing for a free upgrade). They eventually sat down in front of us, pouting.

PE deal was that everyone got a free glass of fizz in the air. The woman just kept demanding more of them (rudely) as first class get unlimited and she SHOULD be first class. Caught DH and I exchanging glances and asked what our problem is. Put her seat back and refused to put it upright when asked to, etc etc etc. Was a complete dick to all and sundry all the way home.

The bonus for us was that because we were polite, the cabin crew fell over themselves to help us, I think to try and demonstrate to the other couple that their attitude wouldn’t get them special treatment.

If you book seats in the emergency exit row you can avoid a lot of hassle. Firstly you get extra leg room. You don’t get families wanting to swap with you as children are not allowed in these rows. Similarly people casts etc can’t sit there. The dividers between the seats are usually solid and the seat is narrower, because the tray table is under the arm rest, so you don’t get other people spilling on to your seat.

Business flight New York to London. Actor from Game of Thrones politely informs some random guy that he (random guy) was sat in his business class seat. Random guy sheepishly moves back to his economy seat.

Actor takes seat, passenger next to him starts playing on his IFE…guess what…Game of Thrones 😂 and about 20 minutes in, he realizes who the guy next to him is.