Reply to Families booking middle seats and then expecting others to switch with them

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP here. I am not trolling and I'm pretty shocked that a few people think its actually OK to do this to others. I always thought that this only happened due to airlines re-assigning people. We recently had a flight canceled on us. We were offered another flight later that afternoon but there were only middle seats available so we reluctantly had to wait until the late night flight which was not pleasant with small kids but better than across the country in separate seats. When we were originally searching for tickets, we also were bummed that one of the best priced fares only had middle seats available so we didn't take it. I learned on this past trip that other people just do what is convenient for them and expect others to accomodate them. They take the earlier flight or book the cheap tickets and just expect others will give up their seats. There are several people on this thread that seem to be doing this with full entitlement too. This sucks for the people who do end up get separated for no fault of their own because fewer people will be willing to switch with them.

On our latest trip a man whose middle seat was next to my husband asked my husband (on the aisle) to switch with his teenage son who was two rows up and in a middle seat. His english wasn't very good and we assumed that it was a father and son traveling from abroad and may have been nervous in a strange country. Once my husband who was significantly taller than the adult man moved, his wife showed up and she had the window seat. I managed our two young kids alone, DH was crunched in a middle seat and this adult man enjoyed the aisle, his wife enjoyed the window and their son sat between them.  In hindsight, we should have made them move back and they seemed so entitled that they should get comfortable seats together.

On the flight back it happened again. This time a woman asked my husband to switch his aisle seat with her 12 year old in a middle seat again only one row up from her and her middle seat. He said no (after getting burned the last time) and she seemed very annoyed. Her husband was one row back trying to switch people out of aisle and window seats so he could sit with their two other kids who were under five. One person gave up a seat but he was having trouble finding someone else to switch. I started to offer to have my husband sit with our kids and I would switch around but then the mother jumped in and wanted us to do that so she could sit with her 12 yr again and find someone else to switch for the smaller kids. We told her no to that again and sat down. The flight attendant finally came back and someone else did take a middle seat to let the dad sit with the little kids without the mother jumping in again. She then kept pushing the issue of switching around with people to be with her older son and the flight attendant had to tell her loudly that 12 was old enough to sit by himself and that she needed to sit down. This family ended up delaying the plane by 15-20 minutes. The pilot had to come on to the speakers and tell people that they needed to sit down in their assigned seats or the plane would be even more delayed. Finally someone gave up their aisle seat so the mother could sit next to her 12 year old son and the plane could take off. The flight staff seemed like they were going to throw her off the plane. We mentioned to the father who was behind us how shocked we were that airline would separate a family of five in all middle seats. He replied that they had booked/accepted the middle seats and didn't think it would be that hard to find 3-5 people to switch with them. Seriously??

[/quote]

Yes, seriously. Although my goodness you're assigning a lot of fantastical malice. They found an available flight that had only middle seats available, they didn't go trolling through the Internets looking for cheap flights with middle seats.

Families want to sit together. This is normal. I'm surprised you have trouble grasping that concept. When young children are involved, families may feel even more strongly.

The frustration and annoyance your husband detected was probably mostly aimed at the airline, not your husband. Although, frankly, your husband sounds like a dick, so maybe I'm wrong.

You quite seriously sound like the woman who was speeding down the street outside my daughter's school in her 8 year old Mercedes and collided with the back of a school bus. She then proceeded to inform the police that it was the fault of the bus driver because the bus was in her way.

I'm just curious: Have you ever done anything nice for someone without feeling resentful about it?[/quote]

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