Posted on 10/20/2022 5:19:06 PM PDT by where's_the_Outrage?
I’m shocked that anyone would have the GALL to ask someone to give up a First Class seat that they PAID for. You’d have to be an idiot to agree to it.
Remember that there is a reason why family members aren’t together... it was likely cheaper for them to get their tickets that way and they gambled on getting together once they were on the plane by getting others to move. This might be an issue if there were young kids in mind but with adults.... frankly, if I lived with someone 24/7, I think I might like to get some distance from them for a while and catch some sleep.
Anyway, here’s how I approached this situation one time....
A few years ago, I was on my way to Shanghai so it was a 15-hour flight. As I was stowing my bags in the overhead, I noticed that I would be sitting beside two cute Chinese kids... they were already buckled in and looked to be about 4 years old. I had the aisle seat and as I was still putting my bag in the overhead, a frantic woman was behind me very agitated and in half English, half Mandarin was loudly pleading “please, you must change seats. These are my children all by themselves. I must sit with them.” I paid no attention to her and finished putting my bags away and sat down. The level of panic quickly escalated but I paid no attention to it... She hit the point of hysteria and was wailing but I calmly showed her my boarding pass that indicated I was in the right seat and then crossed my arms and closed my eyes, all the time paying zero attention to the wild tapping on my shoulder. Finally, she ran away and dragged the head of the flight attendants to the seats. I proceeded to show the attendant my boarding pass and told her “Well, I don’t what the fuss is all about. I’m in the right seat and I’m quite happy here.” She says “well ok, but will you move if I can get an acceptable alternative seat?” I said “maybe but no promises since I rather like this seat.” She comes back a few minutes later and said “I got you another seat... you’ll like it.” I followed her into business class and took my seat which later became my bed which means it all turned out about exactly the way I was figuring it would... it is after all a long flight.....
You made the right call. I’ve done the same. It amazes me sometimes how stand-bys or other late flying cheap ticket holders want someone else who specifically planned to keep out of a middle seat to accommodate them because they are ‘family.’
They’re on the same plane for a trip that doesn’t last days and weeks where they’ll never see each other.
I remember taking a Southwest Flight from Detroit to Washington D.C. via Dallas because of heavy weather on the East Coast. While in Dallas there was an elderly couple like myself waiting to fly standby back to DC. When it came time to numbers to be called the Wife was able to get seat along with me as I was supposed to sit next to her, but her Husband would have to wait to get a flight out in the morning.
The ticket agent asked if anyone would be willing to give up their seat so he could be on the plane with now upset Wife. I noticed the old Man was wearing a Korean War Veteran Hat. I walked over to the ticket agent and said I would be willing to give up my standby ticket to help a fellow Vet. Needless to say I must have really impressed her as I end up stay in a 5 star Hotel with the Southwest Crew for the night, two free ticket first class to anywhere they flew and a first class flight back to DC.
I walked over the couple handed him my standby ticket told him “That we Veterans always look out for one another no matter what.” His Wife just kept thanking me and I told them both to enjoy the flight back home together.
I called my Wife (then Girlfriend) told her what was going on thinking she would be mad I wasn’t coming in that evening surprisingly she told me, She thought it was one of the sweetest things I had ever done.”
Allot of people today forget that being humble often leads to bigger rewards than being self entitled.
Very nice story. Thank you for sharing.
A good story, skillfully told!
Regards,
That is a bingo! I have read and seen more than a few accounts of ultra leftist millionaires demanding free items, taking extra home from buffets, stealing soaps from hotels and on and on, even though they have tons of money to just buy these items.
Leftists have an extreme sense of entitlement and I would not put it past a leftist mother to buy a coach ticket and try to guilt someone out of a first class seat.
Nice post.
Well, in the end I suppose it can be said that it all worked out for everyone..... but as I said at the outset of my post, the reason why these situations occur is because the folks who want to sit together (but ‘find themselves’ in scattered locations) are ones who deliberately made the decision to not pay the cost of buying all the seats together when the original booking was made. There may be exceptions to that of course such as when emergencies come up and a family will book at the last minute with limited seating remaining, but I don’t believe those are majority of the time. Why would I go out of my way to rectify a situation that they created for themselves?
I will say this as a general rule that obviously doesn’t just apply to air travel... I don’t think my role as a customer is to solve problems that others create. I may be part of a solution but the folks who create the problem should be the ones who solve the problem. This was really the point to my narrative.... there is simply no way that I was going to solve another passenger’s dilemma (which I believe they created for themselves by going cheap and not preselecting their seats) without the input of the airline who we were all paying money to. By poking my nose into that, I could create a new problem and then it would be me dealing with the airline trying to unravel something that they weren’t a part of. In the case of my flight to Shanghai, that rep for the airline was the head flight attendant and indeed, she did what she was hired to do.
I should have added to my story that after I got reseated, the flight attendant gave me a knowing look as I thanked her and tapped me on my shoulder and said, “that was very nice work”.
By the way, I was driving one day and the local talk radio had a very similar subject as the focus of the program and there were folks calling in to tell their story. I decided to call in and tell the story I posted above... the hosts were laughing so hard, they must have gone about a half minute or so before they could resume.
When you travel its totally up to you if you want to change seats. I go to great lengths to make sure I have an aisle seat and I’m not making changes. I can’t even imagine asking someone to change with you from first class to coach. 😆
Always make it about a guy. You just can’t help yourself. 😂
Kids or no kids, I’m not sitting in a middle seat. To your point, I’ve even paid more for the isle seat so yeah, not giving it up.
I wasn't aware that it is possible to select a particular seat when purchasing an airline ticket.
Have things changed since 1972, when I last flew?
I hear tell that one can now purchase tickets over the phone - but that that involves talking to a computer voice and brachiating one's way through an entire decision-tree of choices ("Press '2' if you want a refund for your ticket; Press '3' if you want to upgrade; etc."). Is it then possible, when speaking with the computer voice, to specify that one wants a seat "kind of near the lavatory - but not too near?"
My dear sister, at age 75, is now finally retiring, and has mountains of (virtual) paperwork to fill out - and is appalled by the computer-savvy expected of one nowadays.
"First, print out (DOESN'T HAVE A PRINTER), fill out, and then scan (DOESN'T HAVE A SCANNER) the five individual pages of the form. Insert the five JPGs into a PDF and compress it to below 2 MB. Then reconfigure your deflector phalanx to emit tachyons!"
Regards,
I was on a plane once sitting at the window seat. An attractive young lady came and set at the aisle seat beside me. They hadn’t closed the doors of the plane yet, but she had a death grip on the armrests and was sitting rigid in that seat.
We taxied and took off. Then the plane leveled off. She still had that death grip going on and wasn’t moving a muscle. We experienced some mild turbulence and she gasped, turning to me, and asked “What was that?”
I looked out the window and said, “We ran over a dog.”
She gave this forlorn look and said “Awww”. Then she resumed her death grip, staring straight ahead for a good two minutes before she jerked her head at me and exclaimed, “WE DIDN’T RUN OVER NO DOG !!!!”
I chuckled and explained about turbulence, and how it is a normal part of flying.
After that she was able to relax. Just a little bit.
Assuming that you were an eligible bachelor at the time, you could have parlayed that little encounter into an interesting relationship - or used it for a little entertainment!
"I'm an aeronautical engineer, and helped design this aircraft. Would you like me to point out a few of the safety features it has? See that little plate out on the wing over there? That's the franistan. Helps stabilize the entire aircr- OH, NO MY GOD, NO! IT'S LEAKING FLUID! HEAVEN HELP US ALL!"
Regards,
I was on a plane once sitting at the window seat. An attractive young lady came and set at the aisle seat beside me. They hadn’t closed the doors of the plane yet, but she had a death grip on the armrests and was sitting rigid in that seat.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Here is a similar story, but I might one up ya...
I got on a plane for about a 3-hour flight to Denver and was sitting in an aisle seat near the back. Two young ladies about 17 or 18 years old were beside me in the window and center seats. We made some idle talk for a few minutes, and it was coming up to pushing back from the gate. While it was coasting over to the runway, one of the young ladies said to me in a rather forthright manner... “we have a question for you. You’ve obviously flown before but this is the first time both of us have ever been in an airplane and we’re both terrified. Would you mind exchanging seats and sit in the middle until after takeoff so that we can both grab one of your arms? Would you do that for us?” I looked at the two of them with my jaw on the floor as it took me a few seconds to take in this request.... “you’re kidding, right?” Their ashen faces told me they weren’t kidding, and they verbally assured me they were serious, so I said “sure... you in the middle, slide over top of me and I’ll slide under you into the middle seat.” In a couple of seconds, the move was made, and these two young ladies couldn’t have been happier... they each grabbed one of my arms and hung on for dear life as the plane continued coasting, then took off and I don’t think it was until the plane had leveled off that it was possible for blood to start flowing in my arms again as their grips slowly eased off. At that point we slid back over to the original seating and the rest of the flight was uneventful. We said goodby at the end (they were ok for the landing!) and they couldn’t thank me enough as we went our separate ways.
Wow. That is quite a story.
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