As summer travel kicks into high gear, the sport of musical chairs within the sky shows no signs of slowing down because the seat-swapping trend continues.
Within the “r/americanairlines” forum on Reddit, a user titled a post, “Finally happened to me.”
The person wrote, “Possibly I should stop reading about seat swappers … since it finally happened to me. Get in my 2A seat and I tell the girl, ‘Hey, before you get settled, I’m on the window.’ And he or she goes, ‘Well, my husband and I are apart in separate aisle seats.’”
The user continued within the post, “I’m going, ‘OK, well, I’m not moving, so I hope you work it out.’ She goes, ‘Well, it’s still business class.’ No.”
The Reddit poster added, “To clear this up, I’m on an airbus 2×2. No middle. And it was my seat that I paid for. Moving to an aisle after I booked a window months ago is just not the identical … otherwise [I] would’ve obliged,” the flight passenger clarified.
The post garnered over 1,000 reactions as people took to the comments section to debate the difficulty and share their very own encounters with seat swappers on board flights.
“I’m under no circumstances for seat swapping. It’s ridiculous,” wrote one user.
One other user wrote, “Returned recently from Munich and the girl across the aisle kept asking me to change seats so she could sit next to her husband.”
One other person wrote, “I mean, there’s no harm in asking, but when the reply is ‘No,’ politely drop it and move on.”
“Unless an individual has some kind of illness where their traveling partner needs immediate proximity, there’s no point on this,” wrote one user.
Many users addressed fellow flyers’ should be near their spouses or relations on planes.
“Why can’t grown-ups just suck it up in the event that they will not be next to at least one one other for a number of hours?” commented one user.
A Redditor wrote that she and her spouse “fly often, and sometimes we are able to’t sit next to one another — big deal. We never ask someone to trade seats.”
A user admitted, “I’m one in all these seat swappers any time I travel with family. We reserve a row and the window and aisle seat … hoping nobody gets the center … If we occur to get a middle [seat]er, we ask them if it’s OK in the event that they get the window as a substitute or aisle. Haven’t had a criticism yet … Hoping it stays that way.”
California-based etiquette expert Rosalinda Randall weighed in on the situation, telling Fox News Digital that “nobody has the duty to change their seat.”
“The person making the request has no right to expect [this] or make a scene once they don’t get their way,” said Randall.
Randall said there could also be some circumstances during which it will be a minor inconvenience to change.
“It’s a brief flight, you will discover an analogous seat in one other row, or anyone can be an improvement from the passenger [you’re currently] sitting next to,” said Randall.
