An airplane seat one- not had one of these for a while

[Cheeseandlobster]

Was flying back from holiday yesterday in an aisle seat. There was a mother and daughter on the plane, the daughter being about 14. They had originally been sat in someone else's extra legroom seats at the front and had to then move to the row behind me where there was an empty aisle seat. The daughter was very vocal about being unhappy with how little room she was going to have then insisted she had to have her suitcase at her feet which the cabin crew did not police.

Shortly after take off the woman in the seat next to me started vomiting. I am emetaphobic so as soon as I could I moved to the aisle seat behind.

Well you would think I was devil incarnate
The daughter and the mum made passive aggressive comments for a lot of the flight to each other. They wanted to stretch out and sleep and now they couldn't. The daughter said she couldn't handle this. They both had their suitcases at their feet so the mum's shoes were in my leg space, but no effort was made to move them. Lots of pointed elbowing when I was trying to sleep and just general whinging. I was damned if I was going to react and just ignored them. It was clear this entitled mum was raising an equally as entitled daughter. They must have known there was a strong chance there would be someone else in their space but they were just so annoyed by it.

When they got off the mum pulled a woman's hair quite hard by mistake but I heard her laughing about it with her daughter in baggage reclaim as the woman had pulled her up on pushing in shortly after so this apparently was funny.

I am sure I wasn't unreasonable but it would be great to hear about other entitled passengers. I I have always loved hearing these stories

PotatoBasher if true, please name the player or at least the club he played for (I assume Manchester United but am happy to be told otherwise).

We complained to the train company because it was their cock-up with the pre-booked tickets. They sent us an apology and four free tickets to anywhere. We went to Cornwall because it was the longest and therefore most expensive trip available.

Good for you! Hope you had a lovely time.

Where had he been in the interim?!

@Thisismytimetoshine - it was a weird arrangement where there was a short-haul flight from one capital city in west Africa to another in a neighbouring country (where this guy boarded), followed by a long flight back to Europe.

I'm still cross! How dare someone take it upon themselves to take up 10-15% of the space another passenger has paid for?!

@JingsMahBucket Manchester to Turkey.
Believe me I was very glad when only us and 1 sober family were going to our resort from that flight

Another one - I went to my assigned seat to find someone else in it, at which point I was told, "you have to go and sit over there so my mother can sit next to us". I said I didn't actually have to do any such thing, but on closer inspection it turned out the alternative seat had extra legroom (and wasn't next to someone with BO) so I moved. Still cheeky, though.

@MrsSchadenfreude

On the rare occasions that I am travelling with DH and we’re in economy, we often book two aisle seats next to each other. It works well.

We do this, we both get that elbow space and a leg to spread in the aisle and still only 18inches apart.

[quote BeingATwatItsABingThing]@SerenDippitty

They were sat down first so they clearly didn’t want to sit in the middle seat.

@TheSeedsOfADream

That is the only positive I took from the flight. [/quote]
... because they were hoping it would be empty, obviously. Utterly bizarre that you didn’t swap with them.

Reading this thread reminds me why I’m so glad that COVID has grounded me for the foreseeable.
Other people on flights are one of my biggest bugbears

On a crowded train I asked a woman who had put her handbag on the seat next to her if I could sit there, she replied that she would rather sit by herself, maybe she had issues with being too close to someone!
I stood up for the whole journey.And I'm in my 60's and she was around 30.

I’d definitely prefer to sit on my own but that isn’t a choice and it’s mean and unfair to put your bag on a seat then refuse to move it 😱

That’s the height of selfishness, I had the same issue but with a man. I tweeted the train company giving the route and the time and it was announced on the train about ten minutes later that people were to move all bags off seats.

That was quite impressive of whoever organised that- or it was a coincidence.

This is a very recent one, ds has ASD so we use the Sunflower lanyard (as we are entitled to do) at the airport. The lovely ground staff on seeing it took us to the front of the check in queue, all checked in, no stress, happy Ds.
Apart from the bloke in the standard check in queue who started shouting loudly that ‘he’d been waiting in this Effing queue for 45 minutes and now these bastards were pushing in’
It was awful. Ds started crying, ‘why is the man shouting at me? Is it because I have Autism?’ 🙁
Dh got his very angry face on, which I have only seen a handful of times in 20 years and hissed ‘ My son has a disability. Not all disabilities are visible’
The bloke didn’t say much after that. But everyone was staring.
It really upset us all and makes me wonder if using the lanyard in the future is worth it 🤷‍♀️

I was on a flight from London to Jamaica. Two young dc maybe 2&3 decided they would camp out under my chair. I had two heads popping out from where my feet should be the whole flight.
I can't believe some parents, was so dangerous for the dc.

Another trip was a work one from Paris to London. It was 30 mins long, as soon as we got on the plane the people in front of me declined their chair as far back as possible squashing me into my chair which didn't recline. I asked them to push the chair forward and they pretended to be asleep. It was an afternoon flight. Whyyyyyy 30 minutes ffs you can go without reclining the chair for that.

Reclined * wish they'd declined it

An approx 5 year old was running up and down the isle constantly, knocking people's arms as he went. You could feel the vibrations of him running even with your eyes closed trying to sleep. No one said anything but you could see people turning round to see who he belonged to at the back of the plane. This went on for 20 minutes or so.
Eventually I plucked up the courage and said something to the cabin crew, I must admit with a bit of trepidation as I half expected angry parents to descend on me. The woman in front of me turned round and thanked me.
At one point the passenger across the aisle from me was stood in the aisle to get something out of the luggage compartment above. The child was literally pushing him to get past. The guy said "I took my time getting my stuff out. That little bugger wasn't going to get past me".

He did stop when the parents were told but
A. Why didn't the cabin crew say anything off their own bat. It was clearly irritating everyone.
B. Why was I the only one who had the guts to say anything. It was clearly irritating everyone.

I think everyone was scared of the parents reaction. Who on earth let's their child do that?

@Chardonnay73 how DARE he! I’m not sure wtf is wrong with some people but don’t let it put you off. Not the same situ at all but on the long car journey to Cornwall this year we stopped at the services and the queue for the women’s was vast but fast moving, I was waiting with my DC but the little girl in front kept telling her mum she was desperate and the mum looked unsure so I just loudly said ‘Just go to the front of the queue, surely no one would begrudge a little child who is desperate’ she took her to the front and even left her elder DD queuing and the woman in front of her just said ‘Well, we could ALL say that couldn’t we!’ I’m just if you told me you were desperate and on the verge I’d say just rush in too, sometimes you just gotta go.

I was on a flight from London to Jamaica. Two young dc maybe 2&3 decided they would camp out under my chair. I had two heads popping out from where my feet should be the whole flight.
I can't believe some parents, was so dangerous for the dc.
I can't believe anyone would experience that and say nothing 🤔. Why didn't you tell the mother to get them out?

You could have kicked them in the face

I flew on a four hour flight last week and had to sit between two people, in a middle seat. The man in the aisle seat was a total arsehole, and wouldn't let me put my elbow on the arm rest at all. He purposely took up as much room as possible and whenever I tried to perch my elbow on it too he shoved it off as hard as he could. He also refused to get up to allow me to use the loo halfway during the flight. He thought I was travelling alone and didn't realise my 6ft 3, 19 stone DH was sitting two rows in front and I loudly told DH what this man had been doing when he was standing at baggage reclaim near us. He soon scarpered! Nasty little man!

Rather than running to your husband to sort out this rude and aggressive man,maybe you should consider a course on assertiveness. Your DH might not be around next time someone treats you so badly.

Flight from Zurich to London and Dh and Dcs were sitting together a row away from me. Great, I can read and chill while he's on kid detail. The young woman next to me was travelling alone and was hunched over and trembling, she was massively flight phobic and on the verge of total wig-out. Feeling sorry for the lass I offered my hand for her to hold on take off; this turned into two hours of her sobbing snottily into my neck while my hand felt like it was in a vice. I think I was actually singing to the poor little bugger at one point. Dh was smugly amused as our kids slept through the whole frigging flight.

It was an afternoon flight. Whyyyyyy 30 minutes ffs you can go without reclining the chair for that

TBF the degree of reasonableness might depend on what the "recliner" had been up to before the flight..for example if they'd connected from a long haul flight (not uncommon with some networked airlines) and had stuff all sleep the previous night the opportunity for a last thirty minutes/hour sleep before the car park or tube is precious and too good to miss ...I've certainly reclined my seat (carefully) in those circumstances at that time of day and grabbed some ZZs..

Long haul to Singapore, stupidly didn’t book so ended up in a window seat. 2 guys got the seats next to me proceeded to mainline whiskey and sleeping tablets so I couldn’t get out for the loo. Thank god for nurses bladder!

Was flying solo to Australia to visit my sister, I think I was about 21. I'm petrified of flying, normally I dont drink anything on the flight so I dont have to go to the loo, this obviously wasnt possible. I'm also quite claustrophobic when travelling so I paid extra to pre book my seat rather than being allocated at check in. I booked an aisle seat not too far from the loo in order to not have to move about too much. Heard a bit of a ruckus as a woman hadn't been given a seat near her child (maybe 14) because they'd checked in late. I was asked in front of the whole plane to moved to the middle seat (row of 4) so that they could sit together. They said I was the only person who could as the woman needed an aisle seat and I was the only person in an aisle seat travelling alone. I felt a bit intimidated as the whole plane was waiting for this to be sorted to leave. I moved, drank the complimentary wine to help the anxiety and got a small amount of pleasure ensuring I went out their side to go to the loo (quite often due to wine) and listening to the woman's increasingly annoyed tuts!

@Thisismytimetoshine I told the mother and their dad. They reacted pleasantly enough but did absolutely nothing to stop the dc shrugging their shoulders each time it happened.

It was you wasn't it @notimagain