I was flying from LA to Sydney. When I got to the gate check, I asked if I could have a window seat and the gate check guy switched my seat to a window. When I get on the plane, I see the people sitting next to me are a woman, her toddler son, and her husband. The woman is in the middle seat, her husband on the aisle, and her son is sitting in the seat I was supposed to sit in. As I approached, the mom looked panicked and I realized that she had not booked a separate seat for her son (and he seemed just under the age in which he would need a separate seat). She then asked me if I could move to a different seat so that she wouldn’t have to have the son on her lap the whole time. I then asked the flight attendant if she had any open seats available and she had one, one in the very last row of the plane. I told the mom no I’m sorry I really don’t want to move a middle seat in the last row of the plane. She was really upset but I just couldn’t do it – I had a short connection in Sydney and I couldn’t be that far back. I suggested that the dad could move and I could take his aisle seat so that the child could have his own seat, but he refused. A few hours later, I get woken up by the husband basically telling me I *need* to move and that I’m being really inconsiderate. Finally, after tears from the mother and dirty looks and sighs from the dad, I got so uncomfortable I moved with about 5 hours left in the flight (the middle seat between two big dudes).
Some of my friends said it was rude of me not to move and that it wasn’t very kind of me. Personally though I think if you want your child to have their own seat pay for a seat for them! Was AITA for not moving seats?