Originally Posted by runnerwallah

On a recent 6 am flight, fully loaded, I encountered two 4 year old sisters, one of whom was sitting in my seat at 21C. I was already a little edgy from the usual lack of overhead bin space and the early-ness of the morning, and I could think of no way to gain my seat without looking like an evil bad-man. Unbeknownst to me, someone else was sitting in one of the sister's seat.

But I knelt down and asked the girl in the most polite voice possible for me at 6 am, "Excuse me, are you sitting in the wrong seat?". And she replied, "No I'm not". I thought Delta made a booking error. Fortunately, she got out her ticket for me to look at, and it was for the window seat at 21A. I repeated the same question to the gentleman in 21A, and he insisted he was in the right seat. After 30 seconds more of haggling, and me looking ever more foolish, he pulls out his ticket to prove me wrong - and it's for 20A, the row in front of us.

Fortunately he realizes his error and moves. No blood is spilled. The rows in our Delta MD-88 are one-off on the three seater side, and unfortunately he looked on the two seater side to figure out which row to sit in. Next time I run into this situation, I'll be sure to look at the other person's ticket first, or get a flight attendant :-)