This is something of a vent, but I prefer to package it as a suggestion.

Please, if you are travelling with a group and family and would like to change seats with another passenger, do not just take his seat when he has not boarded yet.

Twice I have encountered a family camping out together in a group of seats, one of them not theirs, to create a fait accompli and talk the seatholder out of his plans. It is best to wait until the holder of that seat shows up, then negotiate. This is because: a) It allows the seatholder to get settled in, and not to see an immediate quandary confronting him when about to take a flight: travel is stressful, even when for fun; and b) it allows the seatholder to be magnanimous and gracious in yielding the original seat/changing seats, rather than being put on the spot and grudgingly moving (more or less coerced).

It stinks if the seatholder is travelling solo; the appearance is that if he wants his seat he's being a cold-hearted jerk not accommodating to Mommy, Daddy, the Children, and the Extended Family.

It happened to me once before, and I let it go, but the second time it happened recently, I dug my heels in. I held a nice aisle bulkhead seat, and having just endured a sleepless night (not talking about being in bed and not sleping, but not even climbing into bed), I really needed to get some solid rest, and being able to elevate my feet on that wall was a must. The family who had squatted my seat was offering a seat across the aisle, but the askew set-up of the plane only gave me a partial wall there. I also offered to trade for the window seat, but they wanted that one.

So, as someone engaged and looking forward to travelling with babies and family someday I can empathize, but that is also not to say that because a traveller is going solo, he is completely footloose and fancy-free.

Given that the first time I gave in and that the second I held my ground (the stakes were higher as it was a trans-atlantic flight), at least the personal scales of justice are aright for now and may not be so stbborn next time, but I hope people just become more considerate in the future instead.

Please commiserate or flame as desired!

An alternate suggestion which I think is better:

Please, if you are traveling with a group and family, or if you are not travelling with a group and family, go to your assigned seats and stay in them. If you have some compelling reason for asking for seats to be re-arranged, such as you've ended up being separated from a very young child, take it up with the FA, not with other passengers.


That's not what it appears like to me. To me, it appears like the group in question is a group of outrageously arrogant oafs.


In my opinion, it is no more reasonable for people to expect they should be able to negotiate sitting in my seat than for them to expect that they should be ablt to negotiate sitting in my lap.

Everyone deserves politeness. People such as those described deserve no more than that, which doesn't include letting them treat you like an inferior.

Welcome to FT Grumpy Young Man. I think you'll find if you do a search that there have been several threads discussing seat poaching.

Overall, I agree with cha-cha-cha as I chose my seat for specific reasons. One of which being that I like to take pictures from the window so changing to a non-window seat or even a window seat with an obstructed view is not what I'm looking to do. As a result, I carefully choose my seat to avoid these things.

I searched "seat poach" and found some crazy stories. Wow, lotsa nervy people out there. The thing is, I would actually have an easier time dealing with somewhat jerky travellers versus the families because there's less (or, rather, no) guilt attached to it.