Originally Posted by CarolynUK

Like many others on the thread, my experience is that those who desire swaps in the main always want to improve their situation rather than offering up their own more attractive seat for trade.

My own experience was on a BA flight from AMS to LGW. I had selected seat 1F when online check in opened (and I had nearly the whole cabin to choose from at that point), and was one of the first to board and settle into my seat with my book. I became aware of a couple of older ladies standing in the aisle having a discussion ABOUT me rather than WITH me.

One of the ladies was clearly my 1D seat mate, and they wanted me to swap seats with her friend, but weren't asking me outright - it was things like "I'm sure she'll move for you" and "we need to sit together" rather than "Excuse me would you mind swapping seats with me as I would like to sit next to my friend?". I interrupted their chat and told them that I would not be changing my front row window seat for her aisle seat at the rear of the cabin, and suggested that if they wished to sit together, that they could ask the person at the back if they would like to swap for the front row.

At this point, the companion attempted to sit in 1E (BA block out the centre seat in their business cabin) at which point the cabin crew member intervened and told her to go to her seat, and reiterated that they should ask the other passenger if they wished to swap. Needless to say, Mrs 1D had no intention whatsoever of changing her prime seat for a window seat in row 6, and the sat down very grumpily (I don't think her friend bothered asking her seatmate to swap!

It was funny watching the behaviour of Mrs 1D though. She dumped her huge bag in the centre seat immediately the seatbelt light went off trying to stop me getting any benefit from it (didn't need it as I already had everything I needed for the flight), tried to obstruct the F&B service ( but the nice FA simply leaned round the bulkhead to hand me my drink and then my food tray), and refused to move to let me out for the loo - again the set up meant that I didn't actually need her to move, so all her attempts to make me uncomfortable and punish me for not giving in were absolutely wasted. Her infantile behaviour was not lost on other passengers in the cabin either, quite a few of whom laughed with me as we were waiting for our luggage. The cabin crew were also highly amused by her antics, as the chap who had thrown the middle seat squatter out rolled his eyes in her direction as I went back to my seat.