I wouldn't dream of asking someone to trade a better seat for a worse. Recently I asked someone to trade a window seat further back with my husband who had a window seat further forward and that worked out well.

It seems though, that recently people have felt entitled to my seats. On one recent flight, I arrived relatively late and had a aisly seat in coach. When I got there, there was a college-age kid there and it took me a while to determine that he was not in his proper seat because he apparently did not understand "I believe this is my seat. Do you also have a boarding pass with this seat assignment?" until I said it several times. Finally he said this was not his seat and moved, though one of his many friends around me muttered "you would think we haven't been on this plane since San Francisco", as if that should impact the fact that I specifically requested and received an aisle seat and entitle them to the seats that they chose rather than those that they were assigned.

Yesterday I also boarded a flight late and the person in my seat was well aware that he was in the wrong seat, but attempted to make me feel very guilty as I told him that this was my seat. The funny thing was that my seat was in the aisle of the last coach row (no recline), and his (apparent) assigned seat was an aisle one row up and across. I guess he was hoping for no middle passenger, but it turns out that someone boarded after me and sat next to me, so I guess it wouldn't have mattered anyway (and this person wasn't that large, but made a habit of pushing his arm and upper torso into my space, something that I haven't seen that often in not-large individuals).

In this case, I guess the FA told the first guy that all the passengers were on board and he could take whatever seat he wanted because she apologized to him and seemed miffed that I was took my assigned seat from him.

It irritates me when people take my assigned seat and I will never trade in those circumstances unless there is a really good reason or the seat is better. I would never take someone else's seat without asking and would not ask to change for a better seat.

Oh, the other story I was going to relate relates to a CO flight where many of us elites did not get upgraded. I noticed a man a couple of rows in front of me asking the FA if he could take an empty FC seat. She told him that he could not (if there are empty FC seats, the standby lists are generally cleared by pulling the next person from coach). However, a young couple came down the aisle and the woman was in the middle seat next to the man. The young man seemed confused because his seat was 1B (he obviously did not know the difference between coach and first class and didn't understand why he and his girlfriend were separated). The "nice" man next to his girlfriend waited until they both were seated and then "generously" offered to give up his seat next to her in exchange for the young man's FC seat. The young man readily agreed!

FF