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

I think it’s good your sister was rewarded for being sensitive. Yes, he couldn’t help it, but many people would have made a fuss, and your sis made sure he wasn’t made to feel uncomfortable.

Also the more fuss that was made the worse the tics would get.

I just think it's sad that we have to reward people for basic manners.

I only have lovely flight stories (does that mean I'm the nightmare passenger??! ), such as:

• the lovely couple I sat next to when I flew alone for the first time and was nervous. She let me hold her hand for take off and landing, and he got me a vodka and coke when the trolley came round to calm my nerves - I was a poor student who couldn't afford such luxuries!
• the lady who got on my night flight from London to New York with a toddler and baby twins, leading to my heart absolutely sinking when they sat next to me. The three LOs slept the entire time! She had a lovely relaxed flight - as did I, though I did consider begging her to share her wisdom for the sake of my future children!
• the woman my mum and I met in a Greek airport with the most extraordinarily beautiful baby girl, who was on the run from her abusive Turkish husband. He'd hidden her passport and she'd been literally trapped for years. One day she stumbled across it and just slipped it into the park, took the baby "for a walk", got on a ferry to Greece and booked herself on the next flight to the UK. Unfortunately it was delayed by several hours and she got more and more anxious, worrying he'd catch up with her. Mum and I stayed with the whole time, helping with the baby and trying to keep her calm. Thankfully, we all got on board without incident - and her joy at being reunited with her family once we got off was beautiful to behold.

I have a couple of nightmare train journeys though. The worst one was a couple of years ago, when DS suddenly projectile vomited all over the blind man sitting in the seat in front of....OH GOD IT IS ME, ISN'T IT???

But @IrmaFayLear’s sister didn’t do it for the reward, @honeygirlz - she did a good thing, and the flight attendants did a good thing too. It is sad that her behaviour (not complaining or making a fuss) was unusual enough for the flight attendants to notice, but I don’t think rewarding good behaviour is a bad thing - positive reinforcement is a good thing, imo.

The entitled cohort will always complain. Entitled of course.

The rest of us just want to get to our destination without too much delay or hassle.

Anyway, that girl who sat beside the person with Tourettes is to be admired, not too many understand that affliction for the person concerned. So happy to hear that.

Kudos to her.

@SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius yeah you're right!

Two years ago on a flight from Barcelona to Birmingham. DH sat in row of 3 with our 2 DC, I sat across the isle with two strangers (both male, prob early 20s I guess - both quiet and keeping themselves to themselves). A young boy, perhaps aged 7, in middle seat in front of one of the men sat with what appeared to be his sister (11 yo perhaps) in the aisle seat and a female stranger in the window seat. Boy was an absolute nightmare! He was literally hissing at the men next to me if they touched the back of his chair (they weren’t trying to upset him, it was simply a tray table being put up or down or an accidental knee knock), and growling “don’t touch my chair!”. He was getting louder with the growling and eventually started to shout at the lady and man. And if the guys or the lady put the window blind down, on our row or where the boy was sat, the boy reached over and put it back up.

The parents were right at the front of the plane, sat together and not at all interested in their children, even when the stewards had a word. It was so frustrating and ridiculous that it was kind of funny until we all put our seatbelts on for landing, plans at a pretty steep angle as we came in...and the boy took off his belt and started running up and down the aisle apparently because he needed a wee. Parents really weren’t interested. I’m convinced the boy had some type of issue and his poor sister was in tears as she couldn’t get him to behave. I really judged those parents and felt for the girl.

Second story is a train one. I was 7 - 8 months pregnant just boarded the train to come home after a full work day in London. I was walking down the aisle to my seat on the train when suddenly a woman shoves me out of the way and yells at me for walking too slowly. Really caught me by surprise. Yes, I was walking a tad slow but I was moving! What she didn’t know was that I was genuinely exhausted and doing the best I could - I was so tired I felt ill. I’d recently had my first dose of chemotherapy for breast cancer and this was my last day at work because I simply couldn’t cope with being quite heavily pregnant, still recovering from surgery and chemo. In all honesty I shouldn’t have travelled but she saw only a slow woman holding her up by a few seconds. Another lady saw what happened, went after her and really told her off for shoving an obviously pregnant lady before coming back to check on me. I assured her I was fine...before feeling sorry for myself and having a little cry. (Just to add, this was 10 years ago - baby is a strong healthy child now and I’m good too

Omg @justkeepwalking where is some people’s humanity. Lovely to hear you and your DC are all good now.

Flying to Bodrum on a Thomas Cook flight and the parents on the row behind allowed their child to play 'Let it Go' on loop on her ipad for most of the flight.

2011 and we had decided to take a chance on a holiday to Tunisia. Was actually a good holiday but myself, H and 3yr old son were sat in front of 5 women who loudly swore and talked about all the men they were going to sleep with. They proceeded to get absolutely hammered and got louder and louder.
I had a quiet word with the stewardess and she told them there had been complaints from people with children about their language. We were the only ones with children anywhere near them. Thanks for that!

They then spoke passive aggressively about us the whole way there and got our holiday off to a terrible start. I hope they caught herpes.

And now this..... uk.yahoo.com/style/passenger-leaves-note-calling-flight-084642580.html

And this... uk.yahoo.com/style/woman-opens-emergency-exit-climbs-081444029.html

[quote icelolly99]And now this..... uk.yahoo.com/style/passenger-leaves-note-calling-flight-084642580.html[/quote]
Why is everyone on Twitter assuming the culprit was a woman?!

@honeygirlz did you not read the article? She was escorted off the plane.

The "sick bag article" refers to two separate incidents,

In the case of the hand written note, handed to the attendant as the passenger deplaned, the article states “The flight attendant had asked her to wear her mask over her nose.”

The article then also goes on to mention a second incident where a woman was "kicked off" a flight in July for refusing to wear a mask.

Sadly I have no good stories

BUT David Sedaris has an amazing one. Disclaimer: I'm aware he's MN marmite.

DH and I both prefer not to be squashed, so we always select 2 aisle seats. We have 3DC so that usually means we book a row except one window seat.

DH and i travelled alone to a wedding, i booked 2 aisle seats. On the journey home the middle seat next to me was free, I hoped to have it left empty, but unfortunately not. Almost the last passenger boarding was a muscle bound man who looked like he had invested heavily in anabolic steroids. Yep, next to me.

He walked up, i undid my seat belt and stepped into the aisle. He checked his boarding pass about 4 times, looked at me expectantly, and when he realised I was not going to offer to take his middle seat, he grumpily sat down. If I was going to accept a middle seat, I’d sit next to DH!

He tried to man spread, I pushed back against his leg and refused to cede any of my space. Once the seatbelt sign was off, i reclined my seat (to escape his muscly arms encroaching in MySpace, I’m big, I need it myself), he then reclined his seat, I bounced mine straight up and recovered my space leaving him hemmed in by the seat. Victory.

He was so grumpy. The woman in front of him reclined her seat and he kept hitting it, he was very aggressive (see earlier comment about steroids). In fact, I whispered to the lady that he was nothing to do with me as she turned around to glare at him.

On another flight with the DC we had a 2-4-2 layout. I was sat with the youngest in the window whilst DH had the older 2 (upto this point I was used to fielding all the kids whilst DH had an easy time). DD1 fell asleep leaning on the arm of the gentleman next to her, I drewDH’s attention to it anD told him to move her to lean the opposite way. The lovely man said not to move her, she was comfortable and he really didn’t mind. I think he was just glad she was still and quiet.

In fact, I whispered to the lady that he was nothing to do with me as she turned around to glare at him.

What a knob! Although I don't think a whisper is a whisper when they're sitting next to you

Sorry, I missed the bit that a woman was escorted off the plane, icelolly!

I did not want to go into massive detail.
The plane was mostly footballers going to some Asian competition (so quite a few teams, plus coaches phyios etc).
The coaches and managers were all in business but the 300 odd players were mostly in economy with a lucky few allocated- randomly- business seats.
A coach spoke to me and said that player had drawn a lucky straw to get business seat- so he had not paid for it. So it was stay in that seat next to me or go back with the other players.
He chose to move but guess he did not know it would be to economy with his teammates.

he made his choice. His coach was apologetic. (Chelsea). But many other clubs on the plane. They were bloody rowdy

Honeygirlz, I waited until he had gone to the bathroom. I was too intimidated to say anything while he was there.

Do you check plane seating charts before you board? Am I the only one who does this?

@KatherineJaneway

Do you check plane seating charts before you board? Am I the only one who does this?

I love doing this. When I book a flight I’m straight on seat guru, then I get back on and check if the airplane is changed to a different one.

Not a plane one, but a Eurostar one. We were travelling to DLP with my parents and sister, so there were 7 of us. My DF had reserved our seats in a four and a three on either side of the aisle and we were getting on at Ashford. We got on and a woman and her teenage DD were sitting in the spare seat and the one next to it (i.e. one of ours). The woman explained that she hadn't been able to get two seats together and as she couldn't possibly allow her DD to sit on her own in another carriage, they wouldn't be moving. My DF is so fucking polite and there happened to be a spare seat in the row behind (how, I don't know, as it was Saturday of May half-term and the DLP train is a special service that is always fully booked), that he said 'Oh alright' and let her stay her. So my DH ended up sitting on his own away from the rest of us. I was fuming and would have told her in no uncertain terms to move. If her DD had been a young DC, fine, but she was about 16 and the DM was just a cheeky cow who was rewarded for her brazenness.

I was flying from London back home to Boston when I was 5 months pregnant with my first child. I settled into my seat, all set to read my book and relax. Just ten minutes into the flight the man in front of me reclined his seat. My belly and his seat collide. Who am I to get annoyed with a person trying to take a nap on a long flight? After an hour or so, I was very uncomfortable but figured the gentleman would sit up when dinner was served. He would not wake up for the air hostess. I could not get my tray down because of lack of space between my belly and his seat.

I could not really move my legs for lack of room. The lovely gentleman next to me noticed my discomfort. He suggested we change seats. I was thrilled. Reclining dude would not wake up. It took several hard shakes from my gentleman to get him to squint an eye open. My seat neighbor informed him that his seat was reclined into the belly of a pregnant woman.He was pissed off to be asked to sit up so we could make the switch. He was a very important business man who had a very important meeting to attend, don’t you know...

An a half an hour before landing I started to experience very bad stomach cramps. I started crying, thinking I was going into early labour. The man next to me and the flight hostess were lovely to me.

An announcement was made that due to a medical emergency on flight (me!!) all passengers must remain seated until the pilot announced otherwise. The man in front us (reclining chair man) was furious he kept complaining on and on until the flight attendant ordered him to be silent.

I was taken off the plane by paramedics who took me to hospital. I spent the day receiving fluids to calm my uterus.

I think about this occasionally and wonder what I could have done to change situation. I booked my seat in advance so I could have the aisle in case I needed to visit the loo more often.