Originally Posted by
Segments
FA was so wrong to downgrade a paid pax to pacify another pax.
But passengers often agree to this. I once had a guy come from business class back to our economy row and say "Will someone take my business class seat so I can sit back here with my colleague/girlfriend?" Also, we have whole threads devoted to seat swaps where, believe it or not, people do ask other (adult) passengers seated in one class to downgrade "could you move back to economy so I can sit up here with my wife"
The problem here is that the OP's friends thought that the kids were old enough and responsible enough to sit alone but then freaked out when they made an adult-type (bad) decision to give up their seats for someone else.