50 Travelling Dramas That Happened Because People Just Can’t Sit In Their Assigned Seats

I was on a flight to Bali from LAX, paid almost $2k to upgrade to premium economy and someone was in my seat. Said they needed it more because they were disabled. I asked where their original seat was and it was regular economy. Not today, Satan! Got the flight attendant, showed my boarding pass and they moved the lady out and followed her back to her seat.

Your disability does not give you the right to take the seat that I paid for!!

I'm Irish. And blunt. I was one of the last to board yesterday and a woman was sitting in 2C, my aisle seat that I'd paid for. She told me to take her seat, 18 something. I told her to get up and f**k off to her s***ty seat and stood there until she did. The FA snorted.

I had this 50 year old lady take my seat in business class. I told her politely that she was sitting in my seat. She said that her seat was next to a man and she didn’t feel comfortable sitting there. So I said, fine, tell me where is your seat. It turned out it was all the way in the back in economy next to a bathroom.

Like seriously. WTF!

I called the flight attendant and the lady got super mad at me saying chivalry was dead. Blah, blah!

The guts to simply take over a seat in a whole different class was something truly else! Totally wild.

I boarded a plane once and found my row where I had the aisle to see two parents sitting in the aisle and window seats, mom had a baby on her lap and they had all the baby gear sitting in the middle seat. I stopped and stared at them. They understood and to my incredulity they picked up the diaper bag from the middle seat and said “here”. I said “no way!” And they responded “oh we thought you’d be more comfortable here” and again gestures toward the middle seat. I told them in no uncertain terms I was taking the aisle and all of sudden they couldn’t understand English. I rang the FA who actually ended up moving them to the final row of the plane and I got to stretch out over three seats during the flight!

I had a window and a mom put her 3-year-old there with her in middle. I claimed my seat and kid screamed bloody murder. Some people looked at me like I was a heel. After 15 mins nonstop the mom goes to the next row asking if they’ll switch so kid will stop the tantrum. One person feebly said “I’d hate to reward that behavior, but…” and then gave up the seat just have quiet. One more future entitled adult, freshly minted!

I once had a couple next to me in economy plus ask if I could change from my window seat to allow their son to sit with them. The son’s seat was a middle seat in the back of the plane, and the son was at least 16 years old.

I laughed and asked if they were willing to pay for my upgraded seat, at which point the son who was embarrassed by his parents scampered to the back of the plane. I almost think I did the kid a favor getting away from his parents.

The only time I found someone in my seat he was in the right seat… wrong plane. 😂 Not sure how that happened but he almost got a trip to Tahiti.

Just entitled d**ks. Happened to me once, he was in my aisle seat, belt buckled and basically just pointed to the middle seat i said no this one is my seat and he said “oh well im already in it” and i just stared at him, he moved over and then we spent 4.5 hours next to each other.

I did it once on a flight when I was in the middle chunk of seats (2 aisle configuration) of a flight. I was an aisle seat, the lady to my left was also aisle and had a baby. The lady suddenly got super sick; her neighbor bolted up and got a FA, who announced they needed medical help asap. 3 doctors and a nurse showed up. I took the baby (after explaining I was also a mom and could help) and moved to the empty seat behind me so the nurse could take my seat. In the meantime, the guy who had been in the bathroom came back and I was in his seat. I told him what was up (he had missed all the drama) and he made room for me and the kid. He moved to a middle seat.

We landed 45 mins later and the lady was mostly fine. They wheeled her and the baby off in a wheelchair.

That was the one time I stole a seat

I had a guy in my seat on our flight back from Australia to the Netherlands this year.

We flew premium economy which was kind of a big deal for us - especially on such a long flight.

Got to my seat and a dude is in it - like properly settled in with his glass of champagne. When I told him it was my seat he was like, why don’t we swap? He was two rows behind which mind you there are like max 8 rows in premium economy so it’s not like he was heading to the back of the plane.

I said no sorry dude I am flying with my partner. Like we specifically got those seats to be together with no one else in the row why would I swap with you mate?

He begrudgingly takes his assigned seat. He wasn’t super salty about it but I was puzzled. Then it turns out the flight attendant addresses him by name and welcomes him back to the airline and has a little chat with him so he’s obviously a very frequent flyer. Which just left me more puzzled - how often does he get away with this and why did he even try it in the first place? The entitlement was strong.

I am 6’5 250 (was heavier at the time..) and had bought a premium seat on the way back from Europe a few years ago and got up to use the rest room before the flight took off and an older woman with her husband sat in my seat and she was standing in the aisle waiting for me to come back. And before I even said anything or got to the seat she just started in on me “my husband needs this seat. He is having knee pain and back pain. And blah blah blah” I was empathetic. I was like “yea, me too. That is why I bought this seat.” She was so abrasive about it. And they clearly were not poor. They were just poor planners. I told her I would help try to sweet talk the flight attendants and get them a seat. But, this one was mine. And I’m not sitting in a small seat for 11 hours. Not happening. She was so furious. I was laughing at first. Like, “let’s work together and get you upgraded.” They just didn’t want to pay!! They wanted me to switch. The flight attendant came over and told her “we have already offered you an upgrade at the gate and you refused the cost.”. That was it. I was like get out of my seat. I’m over it. My wife overheard it as she was not sitting next to me and she went off. Neither of them was over 5’6. If I was shorter, I’d never pay for the BS upgrades. But, flying brings out the worst in people. I’m off to Portugal tomorrow… Hopefully, I don’t have any over zealous seat stealers or get bumped.

Had this happen once. I buy seats with extra leg room when I can. When I told them that they were in my seat, they said, "It doesn't really matter where we sit."

"OK, great. Then it doesn't matter if you move to your assigned seat."

Found out that they had a middle seat and was hoping that I wouldn't care enough to make them move. Some people are just entitled.

A few years ago, I flew several times over the course of a month and once ended up in the wrong seat because it was the seat number I’d had on my previous flight and I was exhausted and just made a mistake.

The guy was super cool about it and ended up just taking my seat a couple rows back, which I did feel bad about cause I know people like to be closer to the front to get off quicker. But he insisted it was fine.

My point is, sometimes it’s an honest mistake, not assholes playing dumb!

Got on a plane last year and 3 people were in my row, 1 was in my window seat. I explained to them that they were in the wrong row. The lady suggested to me that I could just take her seat in the row behind. I explained to her that I had paid $$ for “ extra leg room”. Her reply was “so” we don’t want to move. After standing there and gazing at her, the three perturbedly moved. Some people are just entitled a*sholes.

Lol all the comments are from people who had their seats stolen.

I'm surprised that in 20+ years and almost 800 flights this only happened to me twice.

I had a business class seat from Copenhagen to Chicago. Got held up at exit control so was last to board. Some bro-type in ins 20s was in my seat. I just stared at him and told him that was my seat and he did the "Oohs I read my seat number wrong" routine and started packing. After he got up I looks behind me the SAS flight attendant gave me a nod and a smile, like she was about to jump in if he gave me any shit.

Another time one younger guy other was in my economy aisle seat. When I walked up he asked very politely if I am willing to switch so he can sit with his friend (that's in the seat next to me), and that he also has an aisle seat but only two rows back so I'm not trading down. I wasn't thrilled about it at first, be he was clearly waiting for me to show up so he can ask (instead of playing dumb), was very polite about it, and made it a point to say that it is an equivalent aisle seat (and two rows back wasn't a big deal). I figured he handled about as well as he could have so I switched.

I have had people get “confused” (quote unquote) and sit in my seat, but they always immediately move when I point out they’re in my seat

But the worst one was when I had a gate agent tell (not ask) me to move so that a couple could sit together. When I asked whether the seat was still a window seat, she acted like she didn’t want to answer, as though my opinion didn’t matter at all. I kept asking and asking until finally she said yes, it was a window seat. Like I’m aware she can move me without my consent, but at least pretend to not be a d**k, and if I got moved to a non-window seat then I was going to contact customer service until I got some sort of voucher or something.

Recently went on a historic train ride as a gift to my FIL, we had upgraded seats in a never car with an assigned booth for the four of us. There were 5 booths on the car, three for groups of four, and two for groups of two. All were occupied besides one of the 2 person booths. Now, amongst the three cars, there was a very cheap one, our middle of the road one, an expensive nicer one, and then you really shell out for a private cabin. It was out and back, with a couple hours in the destination city as they moved the cars to another train for the return trip. All was fine on the way up, but when we got back after the city time, there was a couple spread out, like, stretching to take up as much of the side of the booth they were on as possible, in the booth next to ours.

The people who were in the booth in the way up eventually also got back, and asked them to move to they could sit down - noting that before the return leg, everyone was allowed to walk around and see every car. These nice people just assumed they wanted to get a feel for it, and kindly asked that they move on.

Also note, the group that was sitting there on the way were awfully elderly, and this couple was quite young.

The couple flat out refused, saying “It’s open seating, we can sit anywhere and we got back before you, so you’ll have to find other seats.” Of course the older group informed them that they paid more than double the cheaper car rate for that table, but they still wouldn’t budge.

It eventually took getting the car attendant threatening to get the police involved before they finally went back to their car.

Wild what some people think they can get away with.

I have a weirdly unique story about this:

I boarded a plane and saw a guy in my aisle seat, assuming he was pulling the same maneuver. I told him that's my seat, he shrugged and got up and walked away. But then immediately comes back to say it's HIS seat and shows me his ticket...but it's just an exact copy of my ticket. My name, my ff number, my seat.

When he scanned in they printed him a new boarding pass and gave him a copy of mine somehow. The gate agent got him the correct one a few minutes later, but a strange resolution to what I thought was a classic seat nabber

On a long flight with my family, we had paid extra for exit row seats because my husband and children are very tall and long legged. Me not so much. My son had the aisle seat across the aisle from me, appearing to be flying himself. A man was in his seat when he arrived. He wanted to sit next to his girlfriend and offered my son his seat in the next row. My son is young and easy going and was obliging when I looked up and asked what was happening. They each had middle seats, one in the exit row and one in the row behind. They wanted to sit together in the exit row and for my son to sit in the middle seat in the standard row. I suggested that it would be a more mutually favorable trade if they offered the exit row seat to the person on either side of the standard row seat. They said no, that they preferred to sit together in the exit row. I said, of course you would, but that's not going to work for us. To my surprise, the flight attendant, who had been there the whole time, began to argue on behalf of the couple! She started pressuring me to let them do the trade! The couple and the flight attendant were starting to get loudly belligerent insisting I was being unreasonable. It was so gaslighting! My son, who was getting embarrassed, started asking me to just let it go. I try very hard when I travel to not be an entitled American and be extra gracious, but this was over the line. I had to be completely pissy and insist he move, but he finally did. Some people!

I was once seated in 7B on a flight that was leaving from gate 7B. I had to explain to about 6 different people that, no, I wasn't in their seat.