Would you give up your plane seat?

[Tinkerblonde1]

https://www.heart.co.uk/lifestyle/man-refuses-swap-plane-seats-mum-baby/?fbclid=IwAR1sZIyQoCtwBcGd5iCtn7U6YLstt_H9sPDd9UkiSej-6Qwq2qWvvB0xqL4

It has been done before but with holidays happening again this seems to keep appearing over the last few weeks.

To me it depends but if its an airline where you pay for seats and you choose not to. Then surely its on you if you are seated away from husband/wife while you have the kids.

What would they have done if your DH wasn't on the flight I wonder? Moved you?

This behaviour makes me rage. The man said no and explained why so they fetch cabin crew anyway
It's a bit like a child telling tales to their mum. Entitled and rude

I think there was a similar thread before. I feel she should have accepted that it was the man's prerogative to refuse, as he rightly said they'd paid for those seats. As with the other situation, I don't imagine she wanted to reimburse him for that cost even if he'd accommodated her wish, she wanted something that cost him money for free. She was rude in the extreme to moan loudly about that imo.

No and that silly woman was cheeky to ask.

People don't want to sit next to a baby, they want to it in the extra legroom they booked and paid for.

I have to agree. This latest trend where parents decide to have strangers pay for their desired seats because “who’d want to sit next to my baby LOL” is just the icing on the ‘screaming baby/smelly baby/toddlers running in the aisles/seat kicking/loud ipad/food throwing/bored fidgeting cake’ that is flying with kids.

Fine, but cheeky, to ask. Awful to be rude, entitled and involve staff. Staff always seem to get involved and ask people to move to accommodate those who are either disorganised, or trying it on.

My response when being asked to move is always the same, if it's to an aisle seat sure, otherwise forget it. I don't want to be wedged in between two strangers on plane and don't see why I should be uncomfortable for hours to accommodate a stranger.

The involving stewards really boils my piss. It's like a waitress in a restaurant coming to your table and asking if you'd swap your lobster salad and glass of white wine, with someone at another table who's ordered the bread sticks and a glass of tap water.

I wouldn’t move.

We have a baby, when we flew earlier in the year we booked appropriate seats for our needs, if the plane had been changed etc we would have coped and tag teamed with the baby, which is exactly what this couple could have done.

We’re flying later in the year, again, we’ve booked appropriate seats for our needs, rather than expecting someone else to not only fund our seats but also be inconvenienved by our incompetence.

Oh heck. I've just booked my first flight in years. I'm going with 19yo DS2. I didn't even look at booking seats because we don't care, but the idea of being stuck between a couple who hoped to hog the whole row....

Not all airlines allow you to prebook. We have just came home and our holiday was with TUI yet our flights were 3rd party chartered by BA. We had no control at all over our seats and just got lucky that we were all sat together.

Not if it was one I had especially selected and paid for beforehand.

Hell no.
We had this the last time we flew. I actually booked and paid for the middle seat as my DP is large and it wouldn't be comfortable for him otherwise yet even the air stewards were trying to tell me to let some woman sit there. F That.

If it's being done to death then that's a good thing. Hopefully it will make people pause and reflect on what they'd do in this position, rather than being caught on the hop and feeling duty bound to accommodate these CFs by moving, whatever the cost to their own comfort. If everyone told them (in as polite a way as possible of course) to sod off, they'd then have to get their act together, book appropriately like everyone else, and stop asking.

I occasionally fly solo on long-haul. I've exchanged in the past, and am willing to consider a like-for-like replacement (aisle seat for aisle seat). But it's never the aisle seat the CFs are offering: you can bet your boots they'll always want to sack off the one in the middle. That's a hard 'no' from me.

There also seems to be an expectation that asking a stranger a favour to accommodate their needs will obligate that stranger to say 'yes' without question. Hard 'no' to that, too.

Perfect analogy 👌

I think that's probably unusual, and in my case I wasn't stuck there.

I'd only swap to a better seat, or in the case of a heartfelt plea, the same seat. I have swapped seats when travelling solo before for a separated mother and child on a short flight.

I wouldn't swap if I'd be separated from my family.

I was recently asked to swap to a middle seat from an aisle that's i'd specifically chosen recently. Lady said that as I wanted to sleep it wouldn't matter. I politely declined, and then fell asleep.

That was my thought when I first read this, too.

Good to see that almost overwhelmingly people feel the man was right. Unusual for a MN thread

The only reason I might have swapped was so I didn't have to sit by a baby all flight, but I'm different from the man in the story as I only have little legs and wouldn't have paid extra to choose those seats in the first place. He was right to stay put. She was very wrong to try and drag the attendants in, after asking and being told no.

Perfect analogy

..except to add, they say they need to swap because they're gluten intolerant.

It would depend on the length of the flight and if I had paid extra. Under 2-3 hours then I'm happy to sit on my own next to strangers. Anything over that and there is not a chance. I have been on a few flights where the attendants have asked if anyone will move over the loudspeaker. I don't know why people can't be more organized.

No. I wouldn't move to accommodate anybody. I choose and pre-book my seat to make sure I'm sat where I want to be sat.

If someone else doesn't do that, that's on them to deal with when it doesn't work out for them.

Mine, too. I'd mention that had my own reasons for booking that particular seat and ask what they were willing to offer by way of compensation or upgrade. If it's a back row, non-reclining seat or middle-of-the-row horror that everyone avoids with good reason, then that would be 'no'.

I've refused to change in the past because I was being offered a completely rubbish alternative, and had a pre-book, pre-checked-in seat. I had to shut that one down hard, as the couple concerned started arguing the toss with me, giving a million reasons why they as a couple and she a nervous flyer, needed that seat more than I did as a lone female traveller (at 6 feet tall, I prefer an aisle seat). I responded that an answer of 'no' wasn't an invitation to a negotiation: 'no' is precisely what I meant. I got The Look from some of the people sitting around me, but who cares? I was never going to see any of them again, and aside from anything else that was the seat I'd paid for. People have no business in trying to make their fellow-passengers uncomfortable in this way.

I got The Look from some of the people sitting around me, but who cares? I was never going to see any of them again, and aside from anything else that was the seat I'd paid for. People have no business in trying to make their fellow-passengers uncomfortable in this way.

And of course none of them volunteered to swap around?

Why did they want to move from a row of three to a two? Surely that would have given them less space? People are weird

The last time I flew back from California, my seat was between a couple who rather sheepishly admitted they'd hoped the flight wouldn't be full so they could have all three. Obviously (as they were only mildly CFs who didn't actually want to inconvenience anyone else) they gave me the choice of window or aisle.

@ErrolTheDragon I've travelled with a friend and we did just that - booked window & aisle, in the hope that there'd be no 3rd person.

When he inevitably turned up, we explained straight away and offered him either window or aisle. If you do that straight away, it's not a CF thing to do.

But the couple that refused the PP to move so that they could sit beside each other, but THEN kept handing over the baby were the CFs. I would have set up my laptop on my table and sat in such a way that handing stuff over my body would not have been possible. Passive-aggressive Cheeky Fuckerism can work both ways!