Originally Posted by
thegeneral
Since when is 'seat poaching' an issue. Travelers are given boarding passes with an assigned seat on almost every airline. Someone sitting in your seat is easily rectified. The tip is to ask someone to change from the coveted seat? Just so I get it right, the person in the middle seat in the last row next to the toilet should walk up to the person with the exit aisle and ask them to switch from the coveted seat? Umm, huh? A better tip would be to watch for when the boarding door closes. That's when everyone is on board and open seats, at that point, are fair game.
I think I understand what the OP was getting at... It's more about seat-swapping (to sit with your companion) than outright poaching a good seat because you have a bad one.
We just had a long thread about seat swapping, and I totally agree with what I think the OP is trying to say. (1) If you are considering trying to arrange a swap, start at your own seats. That is, don't migrate straight to two optimal seats in hopes that you can shoo the "swappee" off to the less-desirable seat. (2) Use common sense - offer up the best arrangement to the person you are attempting to swap with. We went into more detail about this on the other thread. (3) Be willing to accept a polite "no" for an answer, as some people genuinely prefer certain seats.
Scooting around on a lightly-loaded flight has some associated etiquette as well...there's certainly more leeway but there's still some common sense that needs to be applied. That's a slightly different topic.