significance
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- Apr 3, 2009
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Just wanted to share a positive experience yesterday.
I was sitting on a SYD-BNE Qantas flight yesterday morning. It had been a long haul: 3 hours DTW-DFW, nearly 6 hours in the airport at Dallas, 17 hours DFW-SYD, 2 hours in Sydney airport, and another connecting flight still to come after SYD-BNE. I was exhausted.
I had chosen a seat somewhat towards the back as the middle seat appeared empty, so I was a little disappointed to see the flight full when I boarded. The woman in the middle seat next to me asked if I'd mind swapping seats with her son who was in the middle seat of the row behind so that he could sit next to her. My initial response was "no" -- I didn't want to lose my aisle seat. She said that she completely understood and she wouldn't normally have asked -- it was only that her son was sick and might vomit again. They'd booked seats together, but their flight arriving from Europe had been late and they'd missed their connecting flight, so they'd been rebooked onto this flight and couldn't be seated together. That put a different complexion on things. I turned around and looked -- the son was not, as I'd expected, a teenager, but a little kid of 7 or 8 who was indeed looking very ill and sorry for himself, seated between two strangers after a very long flight. So of course I agreed to swap after all.
If you have to ask to swap seats, this is the right way to do it: ask without expectation, explain the circumstances, and be prepared to accept either a yes or a no. This made it feel good to say "yes". (Mind you, I was glad to have my hand sanitiser and antibacterial wipes with me after the swap).
Later, the flight attendant came by to check on the kid, thanked me profusely (and unnecessarily) for having swapped, and gave me a goodie pack of a couple of mini bottles of wine and some flight snacks on my way out. The mother, too, thanked me again on the way out.
Given the age of the child, I'm a little surprised Qantas hadn't just arbitrarily moved me or some other passenger and issued new boarding passes before we got on. Yeah, I'd have been grumpy to have been allocated a middle seat, but this is one circumstance that seems to warrant it. Still, since I did say "yes" to the request in the end, I guess this was a good outcome all around: I was still landed with a middle seat, but felt good about it rather than aggrieved.
I was sitting on a SYD-BNE Qantas flight yesterday morning. It had been a long haul: 3 hours DTW-DFW, nearly 6 hours in the airport at Dallas, 17 hours DFW-SYD, 2 hours in Sydney airport, and another connecting flight still to come after SYD-BNE. I was exhausted.
I had chosen a seat somewhat towards the back as the middle seat appeared empty, so I was a little disappointed to see the flight full when I boarded. The woman in the middle seat next to me asked if I'd mind swapping seats with her son who was in the middle seat of the row behind so that he could sit next to her. My initial response was "no" -- I didn't want to lose my aisle seat. She said that she completely understood and she wouldn't normally have asked -- it was only that her son was sick and might vomit again. They'd booked seats together, but their flight arriving from Europe had been late and they'd missed their connecting flight, so they'd been rebooked onto this flight and couldn't be seated together. That put a different complexion on things. I turned around and looked -- the son was not, as I'd expected, a teenager, but a little kid of 7 or 8 who was indeed looking very ill and sorry for himself, seated between two strangers after a very long flight. So of course I agreed to swap after all.
If you have to ask to swap seats, this is the right way to do it: ask without expectation, explain the circumstances, and be prepared to accept either a yes or a no. This made it feel good to say "yes". (Mind you, I was glad to have my hand sanitiser and antibacterial wipes with me after the swap).
Later, the flight attendant came by to check on the kid, thanked me profusely (and unnecessarily) for having swapped, and gave me a goodie pack of a couple of mini bottles of wine and some flight snacks on my way out. The mother, too, thanked me again on the way out.
Given the age of the child, I'm a little surprised Qantas hadn't just arbitrarily moved me or some other passenger and issued new boarding passes before we got on. Yeah, I'd have been grumpy to have been allocated a middle seat, but this is one circumstance that seems to warrant it. Still, since I did say "yes" to the request in the end, I guess this was a good outcome all around: I was still landed with a middle seat, but felt good about it rather than aggrieved.
