Do passengers have a right to refuse — or are they being just plain switcher-rude?
As myriad past incidents have proven, swapping seats has become a contentious travel issue, with armchair experts flocking to each side of the aisle.
Fortunately, bonafide travel gurus have cleared the air on what passengers should do when propositioned with a seating shakeup in the sky.
Their general consensus? It should be left up to the passenger getting asked.
“I you’re asking someone to do a swap for a lesser seat in their eyes, the other passenger is
completely entitled to say ‘no,’” Jessica Dante, a travel influencer and the founder of the travel guide Love and London, told Business Insider.
“The passenger being asked should assess the situation, ask what the reason for the request is, and have a look at the swapped seat. If the swap means a less comfortable seat for you, it’s perfectly OK to say no,” she said.
In likely one of the worst trade proposals to date, a woman allegedly asked a fellow business class passenger to swap seats with her husband — who was assigned to economy class.
Dante suggested that it pays to be polite but firm in one’s response, adding that they should enlist the flight attendant should things get testy. Meanwhile, fellow flight aficionado Ally Gibson, who founded the travel blog Ally Travels, claims she even advises the aspiring switcher to ask the flight crew for help.
However, Gibson expressed little sympathy for those in a situation where they need to swap, which she feels is most commonly attributable to poor foresight on the requester’s part.
“It’s frustrating paying extra to sit in a certain seat, only to be moved at the last minute because
of other’s terrible planning,” she declared. “It’s something that both the passengers needing changes
and airlines need to do better at.”
California author and etiquette expert Rosalinda Randall dubbed seat swapping quite the on-the-fly demand: “Compelling someone to make a decision on the spot, without a lot of information or time to inquire, sounds impolite and a bit unreasonable.”
However, contrary to popular belief, getting separated from loved ones isn’t always the prospective swapper’s fault — it could be due to a force majeure.
Carrie Bradley, a former flight attendant and author of the travel blog Flying With A Baby, explained that cancellations and booking glitches and result in families getting scattered about the plane.
“There are all kinds of travel quandaries, ranging from missed connections to equipment swaps, or late-minute bookings due to personal emergencies, that even the savviest traveler can find themselves in a bind,” according to The Points Guy, a popular travel blog. “While your instinct may be a hard and fast ‘no’ to trading seats when asked, it’s still important to consider and empathize with any request.”
Meanwhile, Dante observed that there also other legitimate reasons people propose sweat switches, ranging from disability to fear of flying and helping someone who’s traveling with small children.
No matter what the reason, passengers can maximize their chances of landing a swap by offering an equivalent or perhaps even more appealing trade .
This means potentially losing an aisle seat, but gaining some legroom in a bulkhead chair or swapping a window seat next to the lavatory “for a middle seat at the front of the main cabin,” per TPG.
That being said, they should always be prepared to get rejected, even if the requestee is seated in middle seat of the last row and the trade proposer is in Emirates first class.
“No one has the obligation to switch their seat, nor explain why they won’t switch,” declared Randall. “And the person making the request has no right to expect, or get angry, when they don’t get their way.”