Asking someone to move seats on a flight? Aibu ?

[wearejustfriends]

Last week I was travelling to Gran Canaria with TUI.
I had booked mine and boyfriends seats when we booked and paid £22 for both.
I had the window and he had the middle.

A lady sat on the end and her daughter was in front.
She asked could they have our two seats and we have hers /daughters or my boyfriend switch with her daughter.
I politely said no.
Which she wasn't happy about.
We got "what difference does it make"
"Your adults,my daughter is sacred of flying and is a minor"

Anyway we wouldn't move.

Was I in the wrong ?
Surely if she was that bothered she could have paid like us.

I wouldn’t have changed seats after I had paid to sit with DH, why should I give an expensive thing to a stranger who should have sorted it out herself. I would have told the woman to ask the steward to assist her.

@notimagain thanks. Interesting that in front is considered the same as next to because they’re obviously not from a practical perspective. I wouldn’t pay much attention to the fact that they are ‘guidelines’ rather than laws though, as a vast amount of the aviation regulatory framework is based on guidelines. Nothing unusual there.

Did you have anything to say about paying for seats not absolving someone of a little decency and kindness? No?

Yanbu

I find it weird that people would swap actually. If I do a midweek top up shop in Tesco costing £44, and someone asks me on the way out “can I have your shopping?”, I’m hardly going to say yeah no problem and hand it all over.

Paying for goods or a service = it’s yours.

Eeeeeh…. She was within touching distance of her kid and if it had meant that much, she should have paid to guarantee being sat beside her.

@Littleoakhorn

I wouldn’t pay much attention to the fact that they are ‘guidelines’ rather than laws though, as a vast amount of the aviation regulatory framework is based on guidelines. Nothing unusual there.

Well depends what regulations we are on about.

Most the aviation regulatory framework I was subject to when working in the industry very very much had basis in law.

Not really sure what point you are trying to make with your second paragraph (actually I am)...

Personally when travelling as a commercial passenger I used to try and chose an aisle seat for reasons that would certainly make me reluctant to simply give a seat up to be kind to somebody else.

The whole situation is ridiculous. If you book as a party you should be sat together (same row if two of you). Just charge everyone an extra £5 on the fare and just do it. It would save so much angst! I hate this idea that you have to book your seats way ahead of time, or risk getting a rubbish seat at check-in. Fortunately the airlines I use don't deliberately split you up across the cabin, and I can usually get two seats together at check-in even though they might be further back on the plane.

It's also silly if they then change the plane and you can't have your booked seat anyway.

This! So fed up of people not paying then thinking someone will just have to move. That’s the risk you take.

I've always booked seats together. But if the flight gets changed then you lose your booking. It's happened to me when I got moved to a window seat and my 5 year old child also got moved to a window seat on the row behind on the opposite isle. So it was impossible for me to get to him to help him. Fortunately the woman next to me was generous enough to help out and move seats. A little kindness goes a long way.

@gatehouseoffleet

It's also silly if they then change the plane and you can't have your booked seat anyway.

It's not silly...some airlines have a mix of types and configurations within types...

For example if you book a seat in Row 34 on an A 321 and then the airline have to switch to an A320 good luck in keeping your booked seat........

Strong whiff of entitlement here. She's probably on FaceyB screeching about what a selfish heartless cow you are 😉😉

I wonder if they go to Sainsburys and buy a basket of shopping, then stand at the exit asking people to swap their trolley full of shopping with them!!

I'm a frequent long haul flyer, don't often see this level of CF, but I wouldn't be moving for someone else's bad planning.

I would always pay to book an aisle seat. I'm a restless traveller and doing that makes things easier for me, but also I'm not regularly climbing over other people to get up and move about. So no, I wouldn't give up my seat because it might be a "nice" thing to do but would mean I had a miserable flight.

I suppose the people saying that they would have no problem moving, or that it's mean not to are also the people who wouldn't bother booking seats and would be the pain in the arse asking others to move.

You were absolutely fine not to move seats but please don’t assume she didn’t pay to reserve seats....we just got back from the Canary Islands and on the way there we could all sit together and on the way back the only seats we could pay to reserve were my DH was at the front in a baby on lap seat and my five year old and me were a row apart, still cost is £80 to choose all the seats and not sit together.

However I wouldn’t have asked anyone to move so she was next to me, I prepared her that we’d be apart and obviously if anyone wanted to move for us I would have accepted. As it happened Jet2 put us all together anyway when we checked in, no idea how they managed it but I appreciated it (and I’m sure the rest of the passengers did too! Haha).

This is a tiny chance occurence though, in most cases people have just not paid as they think, they’ll have to sit them together anyway and they’ll just kick off if they don’t.

Depends on how old the child was, a flight to Gran Canaria is not too long so it wouldn't bother me to sit apart from my husband if it meant a mother could sit with her nervous child. When my children were little we went on a long haul flight and our whole family were separated with one child being sat one end of the plane and my other child the other end, it was so stressful we didn't have the option to pay extra to sit next to one another, thankfully a single guy and single woman offered to swap seats; it helped we had aisle seats.
I was so grateful to them both as my children were very little and no way would have sat for 12 hours on their own.
The more recent trips we've been on we've always been separated but I think the policy has changed now to sit one child with one adult or the children/adult sat behind or in front, which I'm fine with as my children are young teens now but it's obvious airlines do it on purpose to force people to pay extra.

Why the fuck would you revive a zombie thread just to announce you are new and male? Why not try the Active threads to comment on and no need to pronounce that you are new or male, no-one gives a fuck random male.

I would have refused too. If sitting next to her daughter wasn't important enough to her to pay, it can't then be important enough for you to move.

We just flew to Italy and I booked both aisle seats in the emergency exit row both ways. Going out a bloke got into the window seat on my husband’s side and his companion asked us to swap before she even sat down. I said no until it became clear that the plane was half empty and no one else was coming into the row, then I said ok as we both had 3 seats between two in an extra legroom row. On the way back the plane was full and no way would I have swapped. People on planes fascinate me though. I mean having waited in the airport for two hours, why does half the plane immediately rush for the loo as soon as the seatbelt sign goes off? And what do most adults need in a 10kg cabin bag for a 2 hour flight when they’ve checked in 23kg each? It’s so unnecessary unless you have specific needs.

I wouldn’t have moved either. She sounds rude, entitled and tight. Love the way she said “what difference does it make”. Well, she clearly didn’t want to spend £44 so yeah

what do most adults need in a 10kg cabin bag for a 2 hour flight when they’ve checked in 23kg each?

People are people, it depends...

On a lot of (especially) short haul flights it's quite possibly only a minority of passengers check in any hold baggage at all.

Also if you are carting around higher value stuff/important paperwork/electricals/iPads etc you might end up with clothes in the checked bags and still have to carry a decent amount of stuff in a Cabin bag.

ZOMBIE THREAD….

But a perpetually popular subject to get riled up about 😉

anyone with a modicum of sense books seats.

Other peoples stupidity and cheapness is NOT my responsability or fault so I have zero issues saying 'no' to them and they are just facing the consiquence of their own risk.

Nothing precious about staying in a paid for seat. I'm a frequent flyer and see CFs like this all the time.
Glad you stuck to your guns on this one.

No these people need to organise themselves better.