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?

Mines sort of the opposite. I was six months pregnant and getting on a short haul easy jet flight. I was travelling on my own and was completely fine.

An old lady on seeing me walk up the steps, went to the man in the front row (extra left room seat) and told him to move and let me have his seat. I assumed it was her son, but no just a stranger to her.

He offered me the seat, I kept saying no no I'm fine but the older lady was giving him daggers. I felt sorry for him in the end and took the offered seat. I have no idea what got into that women lol

It's not always possible to book seats so I do have some sympathy for those that might find themselves separated, though not for those that don't pay and expect everyone to move for them. I always pay to choose seats together but we went to Australia at Christmas and it was far cheaper to book the flight through a different airline, than direct with the airline we were flying with. Which also meant we couldn't choose our own seats. Fortunately, it was only one flight out of the four flights we were sat separately, but we were not even close together and it was 14 hours. Fortunately my kids are teens but still not pleasant, particularly when there is turbulence. There was another mum travelling with her kids who'd had a similar problem, but her kids were much younger. Fortunately she'd found someone to swap so she could be near them as the aircrew would not help.

We had that once, but before airlines charged for seats! Went away with my parents. Me and my mum had window and middle on one row and my dad had aisle on the row in front.

Got on board and my Dad's row had Dad and child from a family and the Mum was sat next to my mum!

It was very bizarre! We obviously just swapped, so both parties got to sit together. It was a 13 hour flight, so we were grateful!

@FancyBiscuitsLevel it does cost - the airline has to pay a certain amount per person for the software licence for the seat allocation 🤷‍♀️

it’s a commercial reality - so either everyone pays even if they don’t care about seat allocation or only those people who do care.

I wonder if she thought he was flying alone, and could be easily bullied?

Eventually we took off with passengers on the cabin crew seats and someone apparently in the cockpit! I’m not sure if that bit was actually true though!

Might be…it very obviously shouldn’t be a member of the public in the cockpit (though it depends where you are in the world) but depending on cabin crew complement you can sometimes free up a cabin jump seat for use by none crew by putting one of the cabin crew on the flight deck for take-off and landing.

We sometimes did it to get as many staff travelers on as possible rather than bumping them (where I was we weren’t keen on putting commercials on cabin jump seats for various reasons).

Have to emphasize it’s only legit if the move still leaves you with the legal number of cabin crew in their correct positions to cover the doors.

Idk if it’d count as CF, but when I was crew I was doing the final walkthrough checking belts etc. on a row was two kids and an adult, both young can’t of been older than 5. I’ve bent down to say it’s time to get our belts on and asked if they needed help or if they wanted their parent to do it. Person sat with these kids goes “they aren’t with me”. So I’m like erm, where’s your mummy or daddy? They’ve pointed them out, it’s two women sat together about 10 rows up!! They didn’t look impressed when I said to them an adult that’s travelling with them needs to sit with them and they had to split and take a child each.

Vogue Williams and Spencer Matthews. Parents and two kids flying home from Gibraltar expected another passenger to swap seats.
"The air hostess came down and I asked her 'Would you have another aisle seat for this fing particular piece of s over here'," Williams said on the podcast.
The man eventually agreed to move and the family flew home safely. What a horrible person.

Also parents that turn left and leave their DC to turn right and be looked after by strangers in coach. As fellow passenger with a DC was asked to look after a child seemingly travelling alone. She asked the FA where their parents where and said no because the parents were on the flight. The child did not sit in our part of the plan. It was 30 years ago so I don't remember what happened.

Seats were 3, 3, 3

We booked the 3 seats for the two of us with extra leg room, Partner is , 6’5 too (We was seated at the door)
As partner had a extension seat belt , air hostess told us we cant sit at the door during take off or landing (Ok fine)
So she found us 3 seats that were empty for landing and take off

When the seatbelt signs went off we were aloud to return to our originally seats
A woman was sitting in the middle of the 3 seats, the air hostess explained that they were paid for amd we were returning to the seats. Her response was ‘Well im settled here now’

She got up in the end but then ‘requested’ she have the third seat as it was empty as there was only two of us and it had lots of room for her and she was comfy
She didnt care that we had paid for the extra seat for our comfort

Stupid woman. Went back to her seat in the end but as soon as we moved again for landing. 6 hours later she jumped back in the extra leg room seats with such a big smile on her face that we had to just laugh

Sorry, just re-read my post and it’s not clear but I was supporting disabled people being offered reasonable adjustment - in this case appropriate seating without having to pay extra to pre book.

I was flying from Dubai alone, in economy but in an aisle seat very near to PE. Bloke sits down in PE aisle seat so I can see the action unfolding. He's popped his bag in the locker, got comfy, seat belt on proper settled. It took ages for the flight to board so quite some time later the rightful owner of the PE aisle seat turns up and says excuse me that's my seat. Cue massive kicking off. The gist seemed to be that as the seat had been empty he was perfectly ok to sit on it. And indeed it had become his seat. It took three staff a d various threats of throwing him off the plane before he very reluctantly moved to his seat. Economy, by the toilets. After he sat down he put his jumper over his face and only removed it when we landed.

No she didn't pay for it.

She'd booked a configuration hoping nobody would be given that seat and was upset when they did.

I think you have misread the post.

But if you go checked bag, and you’re a blue card holder you get to choose seats for free 48 hrs before the flight - for free

bronze card holder you choose seats free a week before.

That's really nasty 😞

Very recently I was in the middle seat and husband in the aisle, seats we’d paid for.

Woman in the window was travelling with her friend and they obviously hadn’t booked together. She quite aggressively asked me to swap, I said that no I’m travelling with my husband and we’ve paid for these seats. She pushed her way out once we were in the air and stood talking (loudly) in the aisle to her friend while giving us dirty looks.

Midway through the flight when she was next to me again she tapped me on the shoulder (I had headphones in) and told me that as I wasn’t even talking to my husband I had to move and give my
seat to her friend. I politely explained that no, as it was a slightly turbulent flight and I wasn’t feeling great as pregnant I would like to stay sitting next to him. She shouted ‘this is bullshit’ and then huffed the rest of the journey.

In the future I’ll be booking the aisle seat across from him, I hate the middle!

We flew to Spain recently and the flight was really cheap, we’re two adults a toddler and a child, so we booked two rows of three so the kids had plenty of room, it worked out about £65 more each way, so very reasonable.

Short haul so a 3-3 arrangement. We tend to board last as its less time on the plane for the kids, someone was sat in one of our rows so we explained we had both booked and paid for them so they would need to sit on the seat on their ticket. They ignored us, so we sat in row ‘a’ put our nine year old in the window seat and our two year old in the middle seat next to the woman who didn’t want to move in row ‘f’. She lasted about three minutes. When she moved it turned out she was trying to dodge her own kids who both looked like early teens.

Oh. So you’re one of the ones who doesn’t pay for it but expects it because of your DS…

What makes you think the woman had paid for the middle seats? I can't see that anywhere...

Err, did you mean to sound as twatty as you do?

No, you don’t understand how European business class on an A319 works. The service is advertised as having the middle seat free, that’s what European business class is to differentiate from economy (along with the food/service). Have a look on BA/Lufthansa and you will see it clearly advertised. It’s the same across the industry.

Baffling how people are adamant this woman was unreasonable when they don’t understand how business class works!

Had the same when I flew to Ireland last year (as a passenger). FA asked me to fix the kids' seat belts...They weren't mine. Mum had chosen to sit with her husband on the other side of the aisle. I would have been very happy to swap, but she obviously wanted away from them.

I had this at the weekend, me and dh paid for aisle and middle seat… as I’ve got a leg injury.

Large body builder comes in and aggressively tells me to “move” me thinking he wants the window seat we start to move… bloke tells dh why is he moving as he’s sitting in the aisle seat… dh says he can’t as I need it, he proceeds to bark at dh saying he doesn’t care !

I push for the cabin crew explain that the man is being aggressive towards us and due to his behaviour I was not comfortable sitting next to him…. Crew said he could move to the seat a few up….

Middle seat… he kicks off and gets kicked off the flight.

It’s literally part of the advertised service on European business class, that the middle seat is kept free.

@NonsuchCastle

On a lot of short haul European flights when you book business class, the plane isn't configured with lie flat business class beds like long haul flights, business class is the same 3-3 formation as economy, but the middle seat isn't sold - it's essentially your extra space that you don't get in economy. We recently flew business UK to Germany - 3-3 configuration. The centre business seat has a little "your space" sign on, they're not actual seats for sale, they're blocked out for extra room. So we booked two business seats but are allocated 1a and 1c, 1b isn't a true "seat" for someone to book or pay for, it's left totally empty for the space it affords without companies needing to actually configure traditional business seating on short haul flights.

If this was the situation then she's totally got a point - they've paid a premium for the extra space, for someone to be put in that seat due to overcrowding or not - she should get a refund at the least.

Woman in front of me got drunk and kept putting her legs air. All I could see was her calves and feet and she moaning
my friend started shouting at her
give me a crying baby over that any day
last year, a lady was sat next to me, kept trying to supply me with alcohol, and begging me to drink with her, i was with my 8 yo dd , she was drunk as well !