Cvechko

Rkkwan,
Thank you for the link to that website. It is awesome!

To everyone who stood up for themselves: Good for you. I can't imagine ever being so rude as to take someone's seat. I've only seen some rude seat grabbing events a couple times but it has never happened to us. May be because my hubby is big & mean looking. haha

dba31498

Last fall my wife and I were flying from BAL to SLC, and when we boarded,(after our other flight was cancelled), someone was in our seats, I turned to the FA and asked if there was another place to sit and she said the upfront would be fine and placed me and my wife in the 2nd row with extra leg room. Sweeeet!

saharabee

SamH and CubFan,

Yes indeed, I did wish them "Bonne Vacances!" "a la fin du vol". "Quel surprise!!!!"

But, while the expressions were priceless on their faces, it still left me feeling a bit petty (considering the big picture). Wish it hadn't happened at all - and I don't think "ma mere" was teaching her precious daughter (who actually turned out to be a charming seat mate) any valuable life lessons!

Half of the problem is that the whole rush to get people settled leaves the FAs looking for the best settlement possible in the quickest time possible. I've also boarded an AC flight to find a grungy 20-something in my seat, who refused (very, very rudely) to leave when I showed him my boarding pass. The FA, when called, established that he (flying stand by) had a BP for another seat entirely (where another interloper, also stand-by, was sitting). Immediate solution was to move the rude grungy guy up to a spare seat in 1st class!

Wait.... ? What about me? the one paying full fare? The polite one?

Fugeddaboutid!!!

radiofanatic

never had a problem with my seat, but with my luggage. I had gotten to my seat on time and put my luggage in the carrier above. I was in the front row so I had no area below a chair for storage. It was a packed flight. Two german men got on board late and were sitting across from me and back one row. They also had a lot of carry on luggage. So they proceeded to take my luggage out of the above carrier and placed their own in it, just putting mine on the floor leaving it there. Another (large) guy behind me overheard me say "excuse me that's my luggage you're removing" and saw the germans pretend they didn't understand me and almost had a conniption (sp?). There was almost a fist fight b/w the gentlemen and the FA had to interrupt it. The FA told the men what they did was wrong but she took my luggage to the front. The germans thought they were hysterical and laughed and talked about it the rest of the flight (I can speak a bit of german so got the gist of what they were saying).

SamH

Radiofanatic you have way more patience than I, and probably a good thing. One thing that crosses all language barriers would be one's luggage strewn down the aisle in a heap. That's exactly where theirs would have been.

And the FA would NOT have taken my things to the front unless I went to first class with them.

KT

Once I had my bag over my head in the process of putting it in the overhead over my seat when a man standing behind me reached right over my bag and stuck his bag in there first. When I protested, he patronizingly said that there was still plenty of room (which there clearly wasn't in that particular overhead, and that's why he'd pushed his way in.)

I truly was on the verge of air rage. Fortunately, my travel companion begged me to calm down so I didn't get apprehended by the air marshal. I'm lucky it wasn't me in Radiofanatic's place, or I'd probably be in Guantanamo right now.

radiofanatic

I don't know if it was patience on my part or the fact that the nice southern (and huge) gentleman behind me was already protecting my honor before I really got a chance to do anything. And I'm not kidding about the potential fistfight - they had already started shoving each other. And the only reason I let the FA take the luggage up front was because she put it in a place that actually was easier for me to grab and go to get off of the plane.

mrwunrfl

radiofanatic, of course if there was almost a fistfight then obviously at least one of those men was not a gentelmen. You were being too kind.

Carrybean

Gee, I'm getting mad FOR everyone here. Many handled these situations better than I would have.

NoFlyZone

>so I didn't get apprehended by the air marshal

I don't believe they have any special powers in such a situation; only that of a regular passenger. Anyone know for sure? This is probably a good topic for a separate thread.

Sue_xx_yy

Most of us want to be kind, accomodating people - and it is this very need of ours that such people seek to exploit.

Negotiation experts would call the tactic of your 'heart condition' passenger a 'lock-in' tactic - an extreme commitment (like driving a dynamite truck toward another ongoing truck on a one-lane road) that is designed to make it impossible for the party using the tactic to yield. In this case, by implying that he has no control over the situation, due to his health, he strengthens his position.

The advice given by the experts is to not make the commitment - in this case, the health of the passenger - the central question. For one thing, the passenger wasn't really asking you for help with his health - indeed, as you pointed out, he wasn't asking at all. And if he was really so concerned, he would have asked the desk agent at check-in and been helped, if it was a genuine issue. Rather, he was asking for your seat, so to talk about his health or how you're normally a helpful person to the disabled is to buy into his distraction device, as you found out.

KT, we all have conditions on our hearts - and my condition is that my heart gets to sit, along with the rest of me, in my pre-assigned seat.

Sue_xx_yy

Radiofanatic, I can only guess at how shocked you were to have encountered such aggressive behaviour.

Even more shocking was the response of staff - although admittedly the passenger behind you should have gone to the FA in the first instance, not tried to win a contest of force.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that I'd write to the airline and have that FA disciplined for such incredibly stupid behaviour - at the very least they need further training in psychology and people management. That episode was not about baggage, it was about two passengers making an ultimatum - which is what, in effect, the men delivered when they removed the bags and put them on the floor. Worse, it was an ultimatum that the FA allowed them to make. This is an extremely risky situation for everyone. If an FA can't handle an ultimatum about baggage on the ground, they clearly can't handle anything more serious occurring in the air.

radiofanatic

I agree Sue, and shocked definitely describes how I was with (a) the removal of my luggage; and especially (b) the quick escalation of force. As a single, short female, there was no way I was getting in between a football player sized man and two very tall and already antagonizing german males. And I have a feeling the female FA felt the same way. Which definitely shows her lack of training, if you ask me.

Notably, this was the December BEFORE 9/11 so I have a feeling, things wouldn't be the same now. Or at least I hope not.

FainaAgain

KT, sure I flew with that same woman! She had the middle seat, and when I took my isle seat she loudly informed me, she feels very unhappy in the middle, making everybody around her miserable.

Yeah, right, it takes more then such statement to get me out of my seat!! I politely informed her I'll get up any time she needs the lavatory. Not sure what happened. She only gave me "the look" and used to get out through the other side (we were in the 3 middle seats).

Kiwi_acct

The old heart condition/ bad back/ dodgy leg routine appears to be standard stock in trade for some travellers as what has happened to a few of you has happened to me too.

I was travelling from Auckland to Hawaii on the first leg of a straight through flight to London via North America. I was happily ensconced on my centre ailse seat counting my lucky stars that the two seats to my left were vacant when I was approached by a FA and asked (Read told) to move to another seat to allow an older gentleman who apparently had a heart condition to have my seat so he may lay down. (This was after the flight had taken off). His wife managed to get the row ahead of me on the same basis. So a person was moved out of that row too. We ended up on the side of the plane in the two seats there. (The plane being a 767 2-3-2 seating). Perhaps I would not have minded had the gentleman or his wife used the three seats to recline, or if they had booked them/been checked into them in the first place. They just approached a FA span a story and got the rows to themselves. Neither lay down or used the two seats next to them for the entire flight. I knew this because I could not get any sleep at all in my newly allocated seat. I had a feeling they wanted the set up so they did not have to talk to each other as they barely exchanged a word the entire flight.

The airline I was on does not ply this route any longer. I have flown it since to Fiji and they have been fine. But on this one they certainly annoyed me and my fellow evictee.

I am the sort of guy who would rather go with the flow than swim against the current so I did not say anything. In saying that though it does annoy me to know that some passengers will spin a line to get something and sucker people into giving it them. Because in the first instance I believed the story they had spun as well.

Carrybean

And then you feel like a sucker. I think I'd have mentioned to the FA at the end of the flight that the old geezer never did lie down & thanks for making my trip uncomfortable.

CubFanAlways

Sue xx yy: Indeed, most of us want to be kind, accommodating people. In fact, people who write on travel boards maybe more so because, here we are, offering our advice to complete strangers when we could be doing something else.

Excellent points on the negotiation angle too. I’ll have to remember that should it happen to me. I’ll be prepared to say, “If it were such a concern, why did you not ask at the desk?” That is, don’t take the bait. I don’t mean that to come out snotty, I’m just trying to avoid having the person’s alleged health being the central concern, and viola, suddenly my problem.

Kiwi_Acct, as our friend Carrybean points out, I bet you felt like the sucker. I ask all, what was Kiwi to do? As he points he was “asked”, but essentially told to move. I’m 100% certain I would have done the same thing he did, unless I was better prepared for a legitimate and firm response. Maybe you should have said (with 20/20 hindsight vision, of course), after well into the flight, “Hey, if he’s not going to lie down, then I want my seat back.”

I would want to be accommodating, but I would have been extremely irritated to find out that I was the sucker. How do you say “no” without being the bad guy that wouldn’t move for the little old man? I want to have that soft spot in my heart for the elderly too, and yet, sheesh, is this “I’m in poor health” thing a scam that luck has had me avoid so far?

Should I have a built-in health excuse too? (I don’t have any, and there is nothing about my appearance that would make you believe I do.) I don’t want to lie about it anyway, but I sure as heck don’t want to give up my Economy Plus aisle seat, with an empty seat next to me, from Chicago to London.

The way I see it, in Kiwi’s case, the old man had no idea if there were going to be any free seats. So, it stands to reason that he was – or least should have been – prepared to sit in his assigned seat with seatmates. In other words, he must have been in good enough health to endure that. Therefore, he is using health, or alleged health, in a manipulative way.

So, what’s the advice to avoid being a sucker?

Carrybean

I don't know how to avoid being the sucker unless, as you said to have your own health excuse prepared ahead of time.

I suspect why we do give in without a struggle is because we wouldn't dream of doing the same thing the people asking for these favors do.

If I'm stuck with a cruddy seat & there aren't any others available it wouldn't occur to me to ask somebody to give up theirs.

If I had a health issue, that would have been discussed when I booked the flight. We don't want to look like the bad guy if a FA asks/tells us so I don't know what the solution is other than to pull up my big girl panties & say "No."

Also, the FA is looking for an easy solution for himself/herself so the whiny codger shuts up. Maybe the solution is to ask for a seat in Business or First Class if you give up your seat??? That throws it back to the FA.

Kiwi_acct

As you guys have noted. I did feel a bit like a sucker. I am not one to rock the boat though, so I sat there and seethed. I suppose I would not have minded as much had I not been continuing on to London with two more flights to face.

But I think if it were to happen again, I may have drunk a glass of harden up by now and say, no I am not moving. (Of course if I did this I would probably feel guilty for the rest of the flight.)

As noted above I shoud have said something to the FA's but then they saw the situation too. Maybe they realised they had been played for mugs too.

CubFanAlways

Carrybean,

Without realizing it, I think you've given the perfect answer:

"If I'm stuck with a cruddy seat & there aren't any others available, it wouldn't occur to me to ask somebody to give up theirs. If I had a <legitimate> health issue, that would have been discussed when I booked the flight."

That's flawless! Thank you!

I added the word "legitimate" to imply to the FA this might be a schmuck.

Kiwi_acct, you took one for the team and we all learned, so take heart it was not all in vain.