“Shocking Airline Standoff: Mom Sparks Outrage by Defending ‘Entitled’ Seat on Packed Flight!”
According to Gottsman, “You don’t ask a passenger to swap seats with you because you don’t like the location of your seat on the plane, or two of your friends are together and you want to be close. It should be for a good reason or you should have made seat arrangements in advance.”
It also totally goes against travel etiquette to offer someone a worse seat than the one they have
“Generally speaking, the unspoken rule when it comes to seat swaps is that only better or equivalent exchanges should be offered,” said travel blog, The Points Guy. “Maybe you lose an aisle seat, but gain some leg room in a bulkhead seat, or you trade your window seat next to the toilet for a middle seat at the front of the main cabin.”
Gottsman agrees, “You never just sit down and wait for the passenger to arrive that you want to occupy their seat. When the passenger arrives, you politely ask if they would mind changing seats, in other words, window for window, aisle for aisle, etc. But never an aisle for a middle seat.”
The OP thought they were handling the situation well by calling a flight attendant to clear up the confusion
Afterall, flight attendants are specially trained to de-escalate drama between fellow passengers. One flight attendant told Business Insider that they’ve received more deescalation training than ever before. “I’ve noticed my job consists more of consoling, comforting, and de-escalating passengers than it did previously — it’s a lot of management.”
