to ask someone to move their child out of my plane seat

[kipperssippers]

more of a WWYD then AIBU but...
i booked the seat by the window as i always do and when i got to my seat a child around 8 was in my seat with her mum beside her.
When i got there i told the mother that the window seat is my seat and she said her child wanted the window seat to look out, i then replied then you should of booked one.
I didnt want to cause a scene but the women made out i'm an arsehole for asking her kid to move as she had never been on a flight and wanted to look outside.
I did give in and stayed pissed off for 7 hours in my non window seat.

what would you of done in this situation?

lorelei ! Excellent work.

Do they not use teeth/dental records for identifying the bodies? How do they know which dentist you use? And that's why you have to lean forward and protect your face?

Shit, I'm flying to Rome at the end of Jan, just proper freaking myself out.

The only time I get to travel by plane alone these days is for work. That means I need to be ready to start work as soon as I land. In turn, that means either getting maximum sleep (night flights) or powering through prep work on the plane (day flights). Neither is particularly compatible with getting up repeatedly for the weak-bladdered or bored, so I book window seats. And I wouldn't be giving them up, either.

Full disclosure: I'm a foreigner.

Hiho yes I am a fantasist. However I don't have a man atm.
I would expect to sit on a seat I'd paid for though and I don't block train doors

God I LOVE plane threads....anyway. OP I am quite cross with you for caving. I might have considered a polite request. However putting her child there and THEN trying to guilt-trip me would have resulted in a firm No.

It is NOT difficult to get a seat of your choosing but it DOES cost money and some effort. Now you have been so kind the entitled article will continue with this shitty behaviour. I can only hope it is expat's seat next time.

Is meow a 'real' person? Seems like a badly-thought out caricature.

cats you don't stereotype? You have just insulted and generalised loads of people! Then you got upset because you thought someone called you a nasty foreigner,yet you had just insulted millions of people....really?
Rudest place i found was Barcelona, however im not so much of an ignorant twit to say all spanish people are rude

As for your other comments,
I am not a commutter
I don't live in the capital either so there goes your brilliant theory!

I think you're goady.
I think you say you do these nice things so you can convince others and yourself that you are nice.

I would have moved the child too! Not because i'm a bitch but because i'm a nervous flier. Sitting with my dh by the window calms me. I plan holidays so i can relax.
The childs 'joy' does not come before my nerves!
If the mother didn't pay for the seat then that is her fault.
It is all to do with the mother, she didn't pay for the seat and was so entitled as to sit her child in op's seat.

Do you ever get tired from polishing your halo cats?

I have terrible insomnia and this thread had just kept me entertained for over 30 minutes... and there are topless aidan pics. Even better.

I am terribly British i'm afraid, so the idea of children doing what they like with no consideration of others is bad enough, but being endorsed by the mother! Disgusting way to behave.

Manners are very important to me, and if my son ever jumped jn anyone else's sea he would be very, very swiftly apologising.

I would have insisted the child move but in my case it would have been as I'd booked an aisle seat. I'm a very nervous flyer, don't wanna be near the window so I can pretend I'm not on a plane and so I can do frequent trips to loo due to nerves!

The booking was paid for mother was rude - tough bloody move!

Cats you are rude, racist and ignorant. I've travelled and lived in several European countries and have friends from all over the world. Their nationality has little if any effect on if they have good manners and consideration for others. I've had good and bad experiences and treatment from people of other nationalities both in the UK and abroad. Including Italy where ime I can assure you if you behaved as you did on that train you'd have been told you were being selfish and thoughtless! Italians will no more put up with entitled selfish twits than any other nationality!

'Im sorry but that's my booked seat and I'd like to sit there. Why don't you speak with the cabin crew to see if they can find you a spare window seat. Or maybe someone else on the plane who would like to swap?'

I'm actual;ly not allowed to sit in aisle seats or the exit seats because I have mobility issues and in the event of an emergency evacuation, well I have to go last.

I hate the idea that a child gets priority because "They'll get more out of it than an adult" I think this is rarely the case.
I can barely remember any of those so called special moments as an adult.
There are some things that really cheer me up and are special to me, like getting a good view at the penguin enclosure during feeding time. The pushy twat, trying to get me to move so their kid has a good view at my expense can naff right off. That kid will be unlikely to remember the experience, whereas I will have been looking forward to it for weeks. (Dull, boring adult life...)
I wouldn't have given my seat up. Life does not revolve around other people's kids.

Gosh, the thread that just keeps on giving!

As for your list of "good deeds" Cats. I tick all of those. And far more which is too identifying to say. However, different to you, I don't go round in a santimonious fug expecting star treatment because I helped on old lady off a bus a week last Tuesday.

It's part of my character and I haven't a clue what "good deeds" I do, I forget them as soon as they've happened. Unlike you who marks them on a mental sheet whilst waiting for your payback.

For all of that, however much I do, I would still not think I'd scored enough brownie point to either throw people out of paid seats, or block train doors. So I'm sorry, but your whole list is cancelled out for that mindset. And for your ignorance and insulting of whole nations.

There you go!

Fuck me , is this still going.

Unless OP was travelling Upper class, she actually PAID for the seat. Prices on Virgin flights start at £25. Is it really expected to go around paing for random children?

Everyone knows that there isn't a free-for-all on planes - you are allocated a seat. After the seat belt signs go off after take-off, any spare seats are fair game, but not before.

Common courtesy/ old fashioned manners/ being unselfish dictates that you don't teach your child to just TAKE something that doesn't belong to them, regardless of how much they would enjoy it.

In this scenario, as a LOT of PP's have said - if I had been asked politely to swap seats, I would have - and depending on the length of flight, for all of it. If I had needed to sleep, I would have let her sit there for part of it. It's not as if there aren't a lot of people saying exactly that.

I would not move, however, by being forced into it. The fact that the child would be disappointed is not valid, if the only reason she is happy is by taking something that wasn't hers.

It is not a good lesson for the child - oh if mum bullies someone I get what I want. Poor child.

Fuck me , is this still going

Quicker than the 8.15 to Glasgow Central

Cats It's not very kind to speak of an entire nationality in such scathing terms. Are you particularly prone to that?

Perhaps people can pick up on how shit you feel the English are, which is why they get fucked off with you But you just crack on with polishing your halo in between train journeys

It's a genuine thing that many other cultures think the English are cold and unfriendly

I like that about us . I work with a load of Americans who are beyond lovely but they do bemuse me a bit with their non-cynical attitude to life. I quite like being a grump.

FYI I showed my (lovely) American boss your thread re: trains, cats, and she thought YWBU too. So there you go.

This has nothing to do with the 'joy of the child'. The woman has taught her child that you don't ask for things you want, you just take them. The mother should have politely asked 'do you mind if my daughter takes this seat? she's really excited about looking out, etc' and that would have been fine in which case I would have obliged. It's just unpleasant that she helped herself to the seat without consulting with the person who had booked it first. Who is being selfish here? Children should be taught to be considerate and to ask permission, not to help themselves willy nilly.

So what was the mother's thought process on booking her child a seat? Did she think, "Oh it's not worth the money to book a window seat" or "I'll guilt trip someone into giving it to her?" Surely at the point of booking she knew that's what she would want?

Cats no i did read your thread and really unless you drip fed all I read was where you blocked the doors....

If you secrete your detail where it can't be read easily not my fault is it?!

In your op you state quite clearly you were 'standing by the doors' no mention of people being in front of you.

So you drip fed the others blocked you part...

Oh and I'm a commuter who works strangely enough so no time to trawl through your post (which I did read btw).

Super I said I couldn't move because there were people in front of and behind me. So it wasn't me blocking the door, but I couldn't move to free it

I like that about us grin. I work with a load of Americans who are beyond lovely but they do bemuse me a bit with their non-cynical attitude to life. I quite like being a grump.

Really? I think it's miserable

penned in by others standing.

Is what I said Super

An adult in my seat I insist they move, and have done so. A child flying for the first time and excited, I would have let her have the seat. The child was probably too excited to be aware of seat allocation rules and just went and sat straight by the window. There must have been some conversation between OP and the mother to ascertain it was the child's first flight, the mother may even had said please, we don't know, but OP insisted the child move and the mother looked at her like she was an arsehole. If I witnessed this exchange from a different seat I probably would have looked at OP like she was an arsehole too or at least thought it.

I don't regard this as 'giving-in'. I had to give up reading the whole thread because there was too much repetition and PP-bashing.
I share the same view user expressed right at the beginning.