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?

Roid Rage

We paid for 2x2 seats together in 2 rows so that both our children could have a window seat. Cabin crew announced that a woman and her child needed to be seated together as child was under 8 ( hadn't booked seats) and that someone had to volunteer to move. No one did. Cabin core then announced that the flight couldn't leave until they were seated together and if no one volunteered they'd pick someone so a random person volunteered.

It's not on the scale of some of these but it's the everyday inconsideration that just really angers me.

Honestly, they should have kicked them off the flight for that. Everyone knows you need to book when you have a child with you.

That's what's so irritating @MounjaroUser it just inconveniences everyone because some people can't be bothered to organise seats for themselves. I have no idea why the cabin crew made it into everyone's problem to solve.

Or if airlines - at least the non-budget airlines - stopped nickeling and diming their passengers. Our 'flagship' airline BA even charges business class fliers to choose their seats.

This is a story I’ve told before but I’m afraid I was working at that flagship airline quite a few years ago when the LoCos arrived with their unbundled fares and we lost significant market share very quickly on routes where we were in direct completion with the yellow/blue or the orange lot.

Even some of our loyal business passengers jumped ship and when we got to talk to them (as we sometimes did at the baggage belt) they would be quite honest and say they liked us a lot but they could save a few quid by flying with an airline that didn’t charge them for a meal they didn’t want or checked bags when they never carried any.

I don’t know how or if you can ever really get that genie back in the bottle.

I was allocated an end seat . Got to my seat and there was a man sat in it , his wife has a window seat leaving the middle one free . The woman stated saying no no no to me and I said the end seat is mine . She then said sit there for now and find a spare seat after take off . Nope and nope . At the end of the flight she sarcastically said "well we enjoyed your company ". My reply was "tough " 😂

It’s not a requirement. But it is an airline requirement that the child be seated near parent. They work on making it hard and stressful to get parents to pay more. Good on the parent, this is an Airline problem. I would like to regularly see flights of 30 families all seated separately and the air staff have to work it out , taking ages and being highly stressful and generating massive negative feedback until the airline lifts their game or the regs get clearer.

Near, not next to. Middle or window seats behind/in front of each each other are within guidelines even for preschool children, but no one would consider that as "next to".

. I would like to regularly see flights of 30 families all seated separately and the air staff have to work it out , taking ages and being highly stressful and generating massive negative feedback until the airline lifts their game or the regs get clearer.

That’s fine as long as all those families and others are prepared to absorb the increase in base ticket prices that would happen if seat choice as a source of ancillary revenue was shut down.

Over the years there have been plenty of airlines that either didn’t charge for seat allocation or charged very little….the problem (yet again) is that the public has tended to vote with their feet and pretty much every airline has had to change their charging structure.

It’s not a requirement. But it is an airline requirement that the child be seated near parent.

It isn’t . CAA guidelines on this are just that guidelines. They aren’t the law in the UK. Individual airlines can of course have their own stricter guidelines.

The whole issue of ancillary charges and things like paying for seat choice has been debated to death elsewhere over the years and some in the aviation industry hold the view that the traveling public (or perhaps the parents of the current generation of the traveling public) unwittingly made a deal with the devil some LoCos.

The deal goes along the lines of “show me the cheapest upfront fare possible. I know there will be ancillary charges but I’ll book with you now, then moan about the extras afterwards, on the day or on social media after I’ve flown…….oh but don’t worry, I’ll book with you again next year…”..

Objectively a lot of the legacy airlines did try to hold the line with unbundled fares to some extent for as long as possible, so that remained an option for quite a while, but too many people liked “the deal” to make that viable long term.

As I said upthread, I don’t know how or if you can get that genie back in the bottle.

This is what I was going to say - The airlines get blamed, but the fact is people have consistently voted with their wallets to remove comforts for cheaper flights

The man next to me on the plane to St Lucia sniffing glue. Clearly putting drop of glue from a tube onto tiny bit of paper and putting to his nose throughout flight.
It smelled awful, reported to flight attendant and think based on his crazed look it was decided to leave him alone.

They should change the booking system so anyone flying with children under a certain age have to book seats. It’s not fair to move people who have pre-booked.

Seating policy for children varies by airline and country.
If an airline/country requires children of certain ages to sit with family-adult, then they should NOT charge to book seats together, cheeky airlines charge even more for aisle so even more costly to sit with kids.

Parents often are aware of the policy, so don’t pay for seats since they know they will have to sit together anyway. Booking the seats is a waste of money if airline requires u sit together and will make others move.

Don’t blame me, blame airline.

Great thread but if I never read about European business class middle seat protocols again, it will be too soon ...

My sort of CF story but also ironic.

Business class on Emirates coming back from Dubai a few years ago - I was placed next to an elderly muslim lady who immediately loudly let it be known she wasn't sitting next to me on moral grounds (I'm a nondescript middle aged business traveller by the way - don't know what she thought I was planning!)). Turns out her son was in the same section but further back so I swapped with him - he was both very grateful and also clearly miffed that having shaken off his clearly overbearing mother for a few hours, he had to sit near her again. I got put next to 2 very nice but drunk gay men who had seen the whole thing and made me very welcome. They then proceeded to wank each other off under the blankets as soon as we got going. No judgement from me but it was definitely a case of from the sublime to the ridiculous!

They then proceeded to wank each other off under the blankets as soon as we got going.

Grim fuckers.

Why 'no judgement'? That's really disgusting behaviour on a plane.

How about they should sit children with their parents? Really really easy to set as a requirement on their booking system and exactly how they used to do it.

I wouldn’t shut down seat choice though? I would just have all children seated with their family. If you’re not booking seats, the algorithm puts children with a parent. If you are, the algorithm doesn’t let you select a non adjacent seat for a child under 8 or 10.

Not a cf post but just flew abroad and the plane seemed to have the wrong seat layout. Usually if you board from the back on your right is ABC - A being window seat and on left is DEF - F being window seat but ours yesterday was the wrong way round and I wasn't the only person on the plane to point it out..

So I was on left of plane in A etc and the seats across were FED rather than DEF.

I wouldn’t shut down seat choice though? I would just have all children seated with their family. If you’re not booking seats, the algorithm puts children with a parent. If you are, the algorithm doesn’t let you select a non adjacent seat for a child under 8 or 10.

I’m sure some sort of hybrid system might be possible but anything that reduces either the number of people who pay for seat choice, or blocks off choice early on for those that want to pay might be problematic.

That’s weird…

As you say these days A is almost universally the window seat, LHS facing forwards..it can get nonsequential as you then move left >right because sometimes for example B and E get missed for various reasons but you would tend to stay in alphabetical order.

If it’s not too outing can you give a clue as to which airline was involved, be interesting to check it out on something like seatguru.