Originally Posted by
narvik
I have switched seats when it seemed appropriate.
But on a Polaris UA flight this year it went something like this:
- Pre-boarded and took my seat
- Started hearing some commotion
- Turns out someone is asking/demanding to change seats
- Seat change requester wants to sit next to her mother so that the whole family can better take care of her kid during the flight
- Eventually someone agrees to switch with her
- More kerfuffle
- Apparently one seat-change request isn't enough: more seat change requests happen by the same person
- Asks me to switch, to which I reply with "no, thanks"
- More commotion by seat-change requester, because:
- Not 100% sure, but she may have moved from a bassinet seat which she now regrets
- Requests to switch back with the person she switched with earlier
- FAs are as friendly as can be and do their best to accommodate the whole family somehow
...not sure of the outcome, as I put my earbuds in at some point.
Looks like you were on a flight to/from China or flights with Mainland China passengers
I am not judging, but just want to echo your experience that I had observed flying in and out of Mainland China for over a decade.
More often than not I had agreed to change to facilitate the requests in order to minimize further ripple effects during the boarding process. I treated the situations as if I was in their shoes. Inconvenience? Yes, absolutely, but hope they earned me brownie points for future redemptions. My Mainland China colleagues were less accommodating than me when we flew together for work on the same flights.
I don' fly to Mainland China anymore to earn those brownie points.