Was I wrong to move to the spare seat next to my husband?

[Inastatus]

I’m just after opinions on a situation I had on the plane yesterday. 5 of us flying - only 3.5 hour flight so didn’t pay to book seats. Airline put 3 of us together but split the other 2 - me and DH volunteered to sit away from each other. No problem with that, that’s the chance you take if you don’t pay to reserve seats.

However, before take- off someone moved seats leaving an aisle seat right next to DH’s aisle seat so I asked one of the cabin crew if it was ok for me to move there and he said yes once we had taken off. As soon as seatbelt lights turned off I moved and started chatting to DH. The woman I sat next to tapped me on the arm and said quite rudely ‘our son is coming to sit there - we asked’. I was a bit taken aback so just mumbled ‘I asked too’. Obviously I didn’t want to cause a fuss or get cabin crew involved as I didn’t want to sit next to disgruntled passengers for the rest of the flight so I went back to my original seat. The mother immediately put her rucksack on the seat to save it and eventually her son, who was in his 30’s, wandered down to sit there.

Am I right in thinking that they were no more entitled to the seat than me and her rude attitude was really uncalled for?

But you can still not like it!

The F.A's have to be involved in seat changes. for the simple fact that if the plane goes down records need to show who was sitting where. I presme they record agreed changes when in the air.

Not really ...the seat records thing is a bit of an urban myth...that sort of data can help investigators in some circumstances but it's not essential

However the FAs should be asked because some airlines don't want people moving into higher value seats for free, (e.g. exit rows), and in some circumstances a seat move might not be permissible because the aircraft centre of gravity might be v near the fore or aft limit and a move (or a few moves) might take the CofG outside, either the cruise limit or the landing limit.

In my flying days we were required to brief the FAs if CofG was an issue and so seat moves were banned/restricted so they were prepared for requests, and in any event if moves within a cabin did happen they weren't recorded.

Did you read the post?

Well, yes. But that doesn’t mean the OP is out of line.

This is one of the odder posts I’ve seen, how can anything be so badly understood.

I was quoting my Qantas F.A. friend -maybe its different in Oz. Thx for the clarification

No problem, different airlines can have different policies.

I'd have been pissed off if I had a spare seat next to me and someone decided to sit there. But I wouldn't have wanted my kids next to me either.