After nearly a decade working as cabin crew for an international airline, I have a sixth sense for when a passenger is about to ask me a question. On a flight last month, two parents stand in the aisle before takeoff, laden with baby gear, huffing and puffing. I clock them gesturing towards a woman seated in an aisle seat, travelling alone.
The man calls me over, looking exasperated. He wants to be able to sit with his partner and two young children, but his family’s seats are spread across a row, with an aisle in between them, he tells me. He wants me to ask the woman to move so the family can sit together.
Cabin crew have a term for these kinds of passengers – the Mary and Josephs; parents who act like they were the very first people on the planet to have children. You can often spot them loitering in the galley or carrying way too much luggage. They ask cabin crew to heat their baby bottles and food; they complain about the temperature. On a recent flight to Los Angeles, one parent even told me to be quiet because their baby was sensitive to noise.
When I was younger and less assertive, I might have felt pressured to ask that woman to move, even though that’s not a part of our job as crew. Crew have no power to move people out of their seats for any reason other than safety, for example if I have concerns a person seated in an emergency exit row may not be capable of operating the door.
But I won’t be made to feel guilty any more, especially when someone has paid extra for a comfortable seat, even if that means a family has to be seated separately. The woman travelling alone is seated in the emergency exit row with extra legroom. Moving her to the seat behind would mean a less comfortable flight for her. Why should she have to give up her comfort for someone else’s children? I am fed up of solo passengers having to accommodate other travellers just because they have kids in tow.
Cabin crew are being asked more and more to accommodate seating arrangements for people who haven’t planned ahead. Affronted parents sidle up to me all the time, asking: “Can you please tell them to move … we have a child!” Is this really reasonable when all passengers have the option to pay a small fee to book a specific seat? Is it really so complicated for parents to plan ahead?
Too often, the single people who are being asked to move are women. After nearly a decade working as cabin crew, I can’t recall a single occasion when someone has asked me to move a solo male passenger. Perhaps people assume single men have a better reason to be travelling alone, or that women will be more likely to move. I tell the father I can’t force anyone to change seats. If they’ve pre-booked their seat, he will have to ask her to move himself. He shuffles off, sulking.
I watch and hope he doesn’t bother the woman. She’s about my mother’s age. My mother: the newly widowed, newly single woman. I hope he doesn’t shame her for travelling alone. Maybe she’s on some little Shirley Valentine holiday for herself, to talk to a rock in Greece. No one deserves to be made to feel like a nuisance.
-
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.