Originally Posted by gorbatzjov

Hi, I recently flew Oman Air from BKK to MCT and had a rather uncomfortable discussion with a purser. The flight was fully booked in Y with the exception of 1 empty seat, which was in the middle of my friend and I. She was on 29J and I was 29G, so 29H remained empty. After boarding was completed, a rather large guy wanted to sit in between us. When I asked why, since this wasn't his original seat assignment, he just said "I want to sit there", no reason, no explanation. When I refused, he want to talk to the purser who came, asked for our boarding passes, talked to the guy in Arabic, and then said to us: he can sit wherever he wants. After boarding is completed whatever seats are free, can be taken by passengers. I asked him why the guy wanted to sit between me and my girfriend and the purser's answer was: "he wants to be close to his friends in the row before you". I challenged the purser: there was no medical, technical or religious reason why the guy wanted not to sit in his assigned seat, so I refused to allow him to sit in between us, or to move to the middle seat myself. I mean: if you can't assign seats when you book a flight, if you can't assign seats when you do online booking, or if you arrive too late in the airport as a group to fly together (they were the last to board too), why should 2 people be uncomfortable for 1 person's personal happiness to fly behind his friends (who were sleeping the entire flight). I remained set and in the end the purser gave up and the guy went to his original seat. Was I harsh? Sure. Polite but firm. If he had given me any serious reason why this guy had to sit next to us, I would have accepted it, but not "because he wants to sit with his friends". On top of that: The most awkward and frustrating about this whole situation was the extremely rude and impolite purser. Totaly unacceptable for any airline carier to have such a guy as a purser.

What do you think? Has a person the right to sit wherever after boarding is completed (in his own class of course)? Should I have given the empty middle seat to him?