NYTs Etiquette - "I Refused to Switch Seats on a Plane. Twice. Was I Wrong?"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sometimes the airlines make it very hard, you book seats together and then when you show up at the airport your young child gets a seat rows away. I think this should be on the airline to deal with, why do their systems even allow a young child to be seated away from the adult they are flying with? I get why this guy was annoyed and completely empathize with the parent.

This is what I don't understand. It would be very easy for the airline systems to prioritize families with a child under the age of, say, 13. In cases where a minor is under 13, the party's seating assignments should never be broken up or changed without permission. Sometime I will see one parent stuck with two kids and the other parent's nearby seat has been changed to a far flung part of the plane. It's absurd - keep families together.

This is an easy fix for the airlines to code into their systems.

The only legit case where families are broken apart is if their original flights are delayed or canceled, so they are on a new last-minute flight. Still, it should be easy enough for the airline to find single travelers and shuffle them around to keep a family together.

The issue is all the tiers of pricing that airlines have imposed within the cabins. On some international flights, there are now 4 tiers of service + various fees people have paid for a particular seat assignment. It really cuts down on the flexibility, as people have paid for a very specific seat.

[Anonymous]

Sometimes the airline will switch up planes and the configuration changes and you don't know until the last minute – in those situations, I appeal to the airline to work it out. Nobody actually wants to deal with my 4yo sitting alone.

If it is just poor planning and hoping to be lucky enough for someone to swap seats, no deal. I try very hard to plan in advance and pay for what I need – whether that is kid-related or otherwise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can't read the article but I have seen the issue come up on various boards. In my opinion, being a family or traveling with kids doesn't entitle you to special treatment. When I travel with my family I pay to pick seats, early check-in, extra space - whatever I think we might need. If you're not willing to pay for that then you can't afford the trip. Other travelers have also paid for those services and they don't owe you anything.

I think the problem is often on the airline. We have had situations where we did book early and chose seats together, but the airline switched planes at the last minute or a flight delay caused us to get bumped to a different connecting flight. In those cases, you are not guaranteed to get seats together. My youngest is now 4, so it won’t be a problem for us for much longer, but it is not always the family’s fault. I only had one situation where someone wouldn’t switch with us and my then 7 year-old was able to handle sitting next to strangers for the flight since he had his iPad. I was able to sit with my 5 and 2 year old. I did find it weird that they guy who wouldn’t switch was willing to sit next to my two year old for the whole flight but not sit a few rows back. Both seats were aisle seats. I feel like he just wanted to be a jerk. I was kind of hoping my two year-old spilled something on him, but he was actually really well behaved.

[Anonymous]

This is on the airline. There should be no situation where a small child is seated away from their parent. But that doesn’t entitle them to a premium seat. Put them in the back with the rest of the families who didn’t want to pay for seats.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It seems strange to me that a flight attendant would first be asking people who paid for premium seats to move, why not ask people in the back of the plane? Presumably moving those people would also allow the family to sit together.

I would say that the person asking the question does seem a bit smug. You can be organized and still end up in a pickle if your flight is delayed and then you miss a (long) connection or your original flight is cancelled and you have to rebook or you are flying at the last minute to visit a sick relative or for some other emergency. In general I think it is nice to move but I would not expect that of someone who paid for premium seats. If airlines want those people to move, they should go back to the days of not charging more for bulkhead.

This. It's one thing to ask people on equal footing to trade. It's quite another to ask, "Please give up your premium seat, that you paid for, that I had the opportunity to purchase for but declined, so I can have a more comfortable flight with my child." No way.

[Anonymous]

I would never give up a seat I paid extra for unless I was given one of equal or better desirability. This is the airline's problem to solve, not mine.

[Anonymous]

It is interesting to hear that families who paid a premium to choose seats together with children got separated, as in all of my traveling, that never happened to me and my kids. I always paid the extra fee to ensure we sat together and regardless of the airline, That’s always been honored. That said, I have definitely been on airplanes where the flight attendants walk up and down the aisle looking for people to change seats to accommodate a family with small children. I always assumed that they did not pay the extra fee and that’s why that happened. But it looks like, from some of these responses, I might have been wrong in that assumption.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can't read the article but I have seen the issue come up on various boards. In my opinion, being a family or traveling with kids doesn't entitle you to special treatment. When I travel with my family I pay to pick seats, early check-in, extra space - whatever I think we might need. If you're not willing to pay for that then you can't afford the trip. Other travelers have also paid for those services and they don't owe you anything.

Agree and do the same. I wouldn’t book a flight if it doesn’t provide an opportunity to select seats, even if I have to pay for them.

If I paid extra for a seat for the legroom - especially the bulkhead for easier exiting - I wouldn’t give it up either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems strange to me that a flight attendant would first be asking people who paid for premium seats to move, why not ask people in the back of the plane? Presumably moving those people would also allow the family to sit together.

I would say that the person asking the question does seem a bit smug. You can be organized and still end up in a pickle if your flight is delayed and then you miss a (long) connection or your original flight is cancelled and you have to rebook or you are flying at the last minute to visit a sick relative or for some other emergency. In general I think it is nice to move but I would not expect that of someone who paid for premium seats. If airlines want those people to move, they should go back to the days of not charging more for bulkhead.

This. It's one thing to ask people on equal footing to trade. It's quite another to ask, "Please give up your premium seat, that you paid for, that I had the opportunity to purchase for but declined, so I can have a more comfortable flight with my child." No way.

Yes this. Ridiculous on the airlines behalf to target a high paying customer to not move to an equal seat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s behind a paywall so I can’t read the article and comment. Please remember not everyone has a subscription to NYT. These posts with links that people can’t see are annoying.

If you're already hitting the paywall, it means you've read your articles for the month.

Subscribe you cheap f#ck. Good journalism isn't free.

Seriously. I'm as conservative as they come but I do subscribe to the NYT online.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would never give up a seat I paid extra for unless I was given one of equal or better desirability. This is the airline's problem to solve, not mine.

+1 if they moved me to first class, I’d move. There’s zero chance I’d move backwards in a plane.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What do you think?

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/03/style/airplane-seat-etiquette-social-qs.html

Personally, as a parent, I now realize that families really do need the bulkhead. If the guy wants to prioritize leg-room, he should book an exit row seat.

That said, I don't think he was wrong for refusing to give up his seat. He paid extra for it and those seats are not cheap (usually $50-100 extra)!

If families want to prioritize the bulkhead, then they should book the bulkhead.

[Anonymous]

If a family books together, they are on one file in the system. I find it hard to believe that an airline would break up a family if all reservations where made together AND seat assignments were made as well.

I've only been broken up one time and that was due to we had made the reservation initially, then added another reservation for more people. Same person called, but didn't know to make sure to add to the existing reservation, rather than start a new one. The system did not register us as flying together. So when a change happened with the plane, we were separated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Not everyone can afford it.

First PP, you might want to try accessing it through your public library. When the pandemic started, our library (PG County) started making NYTimes, WaPo, and WSJ available online from home. Prior to the pandemic, you could only access it from inside the actual library branches. If you have a library card, you go through the library's website to create an account at whatever paper you want to read, and then you will have digital access for a week. After a week, you have to go back into the library's website and do it again. No limit, just have to reactivate weekly.

NP here. THANK YOU. I was able to set up through my library. I was familiar with Libby/Overdrive but never knew about the newspapers. Thanks again.

[Anonymous]

I can’t believe people are so quick to blame the customers and not the airlines for their stupid policies. Yes airlines break up families who have seat assignments together. Check your contract of carriage.

Technically when you reserve a seat, even if you pay, you are not really reserving a seat. It’s a contract with the airline to get you from point A to point B. FYI. So in honoring your petty request to not be reseated In favor of a family who might need the bulkhead for the bassinet, the Flight attendant is actually doing you a favor.