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

[Anonymous]

Reiterating I’ve bought specific seats for kid, and still had an issue /last minute change. It genuinely happens. We’re not all cheapskates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd move to an equal or better seat but not a worse seat, and certainly not if I'd paid extra for a premium seat.

This.

I was once asked to give up my aisle seat so a couple could sit together. They wanted me to switch a few rows ahead to a middle seat. They each had middle seats several rows apart and had asked me as well as the person in the aisle seat a few rows ahead. Apparently the couple “needed” an aisle seat for the husband to be comfortable (bad knee).

I politely declined by explaining I had selected the seat for my own bad knee.

They got the flight attendant involved, and she asked me to switch. They tried to sell it to me by saying it’s better to move up so you get off the plane faster. Again, I politely declined. Then I got poor service when they brought around the drink cart and pretzels. This was United. I’m noticing a theme.

I would switch if a young kid was separated from their parent—but even then I would be annoyed that they didn’t book earlier or pay to select seats. I always select seats together and pay to do so when necessary.

As someone who used to feel sympathy for separated parents/kids, I don't anymore especially after I got stuck in really bad seat situations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just tell them I'll move to first class cabin but not another seat.

Many years ago, United called me to ask me to move my long haul first class ticket to another day. I said no because I was going to MY wedding. My husband has observed that I get more requests to move, accommodate others than him or any of his male colleagues.

Same. I'm an early 40's woman, obese, not fashionably dressed (Loft/Target clothes), travel solo 90% of the time, always on a cheap ticket if domestic due to work policies. I sometimes agree, and they always apologize once they learn I'm a mid-tier elite or on a paid business/first class ticket internationally. Frustrating, though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd move to an equal or better seat but not a worse seat, and certainly not if I'd paid extra for a premium seat.

This.

I was once asked to give up my aisle seat so a couple could sit together. They wanted me to switch a few rows ahead to a middle seat. They each had middle seats several rows apart and had asked me as well as the person in the aisle seat a few rows ahead. Apparently the couple “needed” an aisle seat for the husband to be comfortable (bad knee).

I politely declined by explaining I had selected the seat for my own bad knee.

They got the flight attendant involved, and she asked me to switch. They tried to sell it to me by saying it’s better to move up so you get off the plane faster. Again, I politely declined. Then I got poor service when they brought around the drink cart and pretzels. This was United. I’m noticing a theme.

I would switch if a young kid was separated from their parent—but even then I would be annoyed that they didn’t book earlier or pay to select seats. I always select seats together and pay to do so when necessary.

I'm telling you - these are very likely United employees + their family members who are flying standby for free as part of their employee benefits. They have to take whatever seats are available at the airport to their destination; sometimes they sit around all day until they can catch a flight. Obviously they will try to get these employees into premium seats first, but they will ultimately take any available free seats.

The retaliation by the flight attendants is making sense - it seems to be part of the unspoken employee code that if the customer doesn't comply with the request, they will give them the cold shoulder. Impossible to prove anything, of course.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd move to an equal or better seat but not a worse seat, and certainly not if I'd paid extra for a premium seat.

This.

I was once asked to give up my aisle seat so a couple could sit together. They wanted me to switch a few rows ahead to a middle seat. They each had middle seats several rows apart and had asked me as well as the person in the aisle seat a few rows ahead. Apparently the couple “needed” an aisle seat for the husband to be comfortable (bad knee).

I politely declined by explaining I had selected the seat for my own bad knee.

They got the flight attendant involved, and she asked me to switch. They tried to sell it to me by saying it’s better to move up so you get off the plane faster. Again, I politely declined. Then I got poor service when they brought around the drink cart and pretzels. This was United. I’m noticing a theme.

I would switch if a young kid was separated from their parent—but even then I would be annoyed that they didn’t book earlier or pay to select seats. I always select seats together and pay to do so when necessary.

I'm telling you - these are very likely United employees + their family members who are flying standby for free as part of their employee benefits. They have to take whatever seats are available at the airport to their destination; sometimes they sit around all day until they can catch a flight. Obviously they will try to get these employees into premium seats first, but they will ultimately take any available free seats.

The retaliation by the flight attendants is making sense - it seems to be part of the unspoken employee code that if the customer doesn't comply with the request, they will give them the cold shoulder. Impossible to prove anything, of course.

After my mother died I was flying back to the US. I paid extra for a premium economy aisle seat so I could stick my injured shoulder out into the aisle. When I checked at boarding there was no one sitting next to me. It seems that they upgraded a family next to me at the last moment and the father was over in the window row. They asked me to move to his non premium middle seat to accommodate a family and I said no because of the premium I'd paid for that aisle seat for my shoulder. So this flight attendant moved a guy from where she wanted to move me to business class to create a gap, then I did move. She never offered to put me in business class because she was in a snit. I avoid that airline if at all possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Reiterating I’ve bought specific seats for kid, and still had an issue /last minute change. It genuinely happens. We’re not all cheapskates.

Same.

[Anonymous]

If I pay extra to reserve a bulkhead, I'm only moving for someone with a disability who cannot access the regular seats, or who needs it to accommodate a seeing eye dog, or something similar. Not sorry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If I pay extra to reserve a bulkhead, I'm only moving for someone with a disability who cannot access the regular seats, or who needs it to accommodate a seeing eye dog, or something similar. Not sorry.

Same. I hate people reclining into me, so bulkhead it is. I once moved back a row for an older gentleman, then had his head in my lap the entire time. No thanks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've only given up my seat twice and both times were for overbooked flights where I didn't have a strict travel deadline. The extreme overcompensation by the airline made both times more than worth it.

I have never, and probably will never, give up my seat for no compensation or for a regular person who wants to sit near their kid. I had a mom tell me "good luck dealing with her!" after I wouldn't give up my window seat for her crappy middle seat so she could sit next to her 5 yo DD. Her seat was in a 3-seat row and mine was in a 2-seat row. I'd paid extra for that, too. Not. Happening. The kid was fine. She watched her iPad movie the whole flight. And even if she had been annoying, that's what noise canceling headphones are for. There's no rule that says I have to engage with your kid.

Yeah, this is what I think parents that say "good luck, she's your problem now" don't understand. No, your kid is not my problem simply because I'm sitting next to them. I don't suddenly become a nursemaid/entertainer. I've got noise canceling headphones and a book. If they're cute, maybe I'll engage a little and help them open their snack, but if they're not it's as if they're not next to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've only given up my seat twice and both times were for overbooked flights where I didn't have a strict travel deadline. The extreme overcompensation by the airline made both times more than worth it.

I have never, and probably will never, give up my seat for no compensation or for a regular person who wants to sit near their kid. I had a mom tell me "good luck dealing with her!" after I wouldn't give up my window seat for her crappy middle seat so she could sit next to her 5 yo DD. Her seat was in a 3-seat row and mine was in a 2-seat row. I'd paid extra for that, too. Not. Happening. The kid was fine. She watched her iPad movie the whole flight. And even if she had been annoying, that's what noise canceling headphones are for. There's no rule that says I have to engage with your kid.

This doesn't make sense. If she was in a middle seat, why wouldn't the person in the aisle seat next to her just trade with the kid, who also has an aisle seat?

If you read the post carefully and intelligently, you'd have grasped that she was sitting in a two seater row. She had window, kid had aisle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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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 would like to live in a society that gives a little more grace and has a little more patience for society’s very young and very old (and their caretakers). Kindness is a value I love to see in companies and individuals alike.

Why are families the only ones deserving of kindness? Look at it this way--you have your loving family. Someone flying alone may be single and desperately lonely and sad about it. Who deserves the grace and compassion? It's this kind of myopia that makes parents of young children so repugnant at times.

Disclaimer: there's nothing intrinsically wrong with being single and many single people are happy and content.

Holy projection. Nowhere did I malign single people nor suggest they also aren’t deserving of grace and kindness. We all are. I believe American society suffers from a deep deficit of both. The several nasty responses to my quite benevolent post is proof of that.

I wonder where we’re headed from here.

The PP has a point. Solo travelers (not necessarily single as in marital status) are often targets for the "would you consider moving" pitch. It has happened to me many times. I feel the airline staff single us out, make the request with the parent/child standing there looking at us and then we are expected to smile graciously and give up our seats.

I did it for awhile and usually wound up in some horrid situation where I got a seat that didn't recline or next to an annoying person. I reminded myself that No good deed goes unpunished.
So I stopped.

Last time it was a very entitled, abrasive woman who wanted to shift around 3 people so she could get herself and her kids all seated together. She had gone up and down asking people (holding up boarding BTW) and had figured out a hopscotch pattern of moving other passengers simply to accommodate HER desires.

The kids were in their early teens! I just said "No. Sorry." and went back to reading my book.

To be more accurate, solo FEMALE travelers (especially over a certain age) are the first targets. Watch the next time it happens -- the flight attendants NEVER ask men to move.

My DW takes advantage of this on Southwest and eagerly volunteers to move -- last time she did that, she got $840 in vouchers.

I've never seen anyone offered vouchers once they are boarded on the plane. The issue arises because they are asking people to move out of the goodness of their hearts, to take pity on the poor family who absolutely most sit all next to each other. No compensation is offered, just some puppy dog eyes and pleading for you to do the right thing when put on the spot. Even though you will now be in the back of the plane/middle seat/less leg room. It's always a downgrade.

You must not fly Southwest. They throw vouchers around like candy. We currently have four of them taped to the fridge -- two for moving seats, and two for giving up a seat on a two-leg flight (and then getting booked on a later but direct flight at no additional charge).

DP here. My family flies Southwest all the time and they don’t bump people because they don’t ever oversell their flights as other airlines do. They also do family boarding so that families are already all sitting together.

Yes, nothing EVER goes wrong on Southwest. 🙄

I was literally just on SW and at the end of boarding the flight attendant asked if anyone could accommodate a mom and her toddler if they had a free middle seat next to them. Presumably, the volunteer would have been moved to a middle seat. The FA offered the volunteer "free drinks because that's all she had" since SW doesn't have first class or anything like that.

I was in a weird position there because I didn't have a middle seat next to me free at the time. But then, shortly after the request was made, the guy in the window seat went to go pilot the plane (don't ask, I have no idea why -- it was odd). So, the middle seat guy moved to the window, and now the middle seat was open. the flight attendants came back on and asked again for a volunteer, but by the time I internalized that the pilot wasn't coming back, they had found seats for the mom and kid. I would have done it, even though I paid to have an A boarding number and have anxiety issues that an aisle seat addresses, because kindness is free and I have no idea why the mom was late to board. Plus, it was, what, like, 2 hours of my life?

Would I give up an aisle on an international flight? Ugh. I probably would. But I'd wait until the last minute because a middle on a long haul flight would suck.

[Anonymous]

A few years ago we used United miles to travel to Hawaii in business class on United. The cabin was the old-school 2/3/2 across so we booked it so we were in the three in the middle sitting with our six year old. The day before they changed the aircraft to one with pod business seats and assigned none of the seats near each other. Fortunately at the gate the agent found someone to switch pod seats with my husband so he could sit across from our kid. But it was frustrating since we booked things months in advance in order to have it all settled, and we weren't comfortable just letting our kid be the whole flight since it was the direct from Dulles which is about ten hours.

[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)!

The bolded 100% NOT TRUE. And if a family wants the bulkhead, they should pay for it.

I am a mom of two - we typically have to sit 3+1 and even if our single seat is in a completely different area of the airplane, we have never asked to switch unless it's Aisle to Aisle in the same section of the plane.

[Anonymous]

I would switch if it was equal. Like my aisle seat for yours to sit with your kid. I would not exchange a premium seat for a lesser seat. No discussion. But they can usually tell who the no discussion types are. Learn to say no and own it

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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 would like to live in a society that gives a little more grace and has a little more patience for society’s very young and very old (and their caretakers). Kindness is a value I love to see in companies and individuals alike.

Why are families the only ones deserving of kindness? Look at it this way--you have your loving family. Someone flying alone may be single and desperately lonely and sad about it. Who deserves the grace and compassion? It's this kind of myopia that makes parents of young children so repugnant at times.

Disclaimer: there's nothing intrinsically wrong with being single and many single people are happy and content.

Holy projection. Nowhere did I malign single people nor suggest they also aren’t deserving of grace and kindness. We all are. I believe American society suffers from a deep deficit of both. The several nasty responses to my quite benevolent post is proof of that.

I wonder where we’re headed from here.

The PP has a point. Solo travelers (not necessarily single as in marital status) are often targets for the "would you consider moving" pitch. It has happened to me many times. I feel the airline staff single us out, make the request with the parent/child standing there looking at us and then we are expected to smile graciously and give up our seats.

I did it for awhile and usually wound up in some horrid situation where I got a seat that didn't recline or next to an annoying person. I reminded myself that No good deed goes unpunished.
So I stopped.

Last time it was a very entitled, abrasive woman who wanted to shift around 3 people so she could get herself and her kids all seated together. She had gone up and down asking people (holding up boarding BTW) and had figured out a hopscotch pattern of moving other passengers simply to accommodate HER desires.

The kids were in their early teens! I just said "No. Sorry." and went back to reading my book.

To be more accurate, solo FEMALE travelers (especially over a certain age) are the first targets. Watch the next time it happens -- the flight attendants NEVER ask men to move.

My DW takes advantage of this on Southwest and eagerly volunteers to move -- last time she did that, she got $840 in vouchers.

I’ve taken vouchers to wait an hour.

I did this once and the hour delay turned into a few hours as the next plane had "mechanical issues". So, won't make that mistake again.

Could have easily happened the opposite way, where your "later" flight left on time as the original flight sat around for 6 hours.

I'll take my chances because you will definitely wait an hour by switching, it's a sure thing. By the time you are volunteering to give up your seat you know if there will be a delay or not on the original flight. So, not "easily happened" much more of an unknown by switching. Not much of a gambler, eh?

All I can say is if you're never boarded your flight just to be deplaned 3 minutes later for a mechanical problem that was found during pre flight checks, then consider yourself lucky. You 10000% do not know if there will be a delay or not on your original flight just because the gate agent is asking people to switch. That's laughable.