Can we normalize backing each other up when seat changes are requested?

This recently happened to us while flying to France out of Raleigh. My husband and I had booked our aisle and middle seats together. As soon as we boarded my husband got up to use the bathroom before the pre-flight announcements. As we double-checked our seat location, there was a woman already sitting in the window seat of our row with a baby. As soon as I put my purse in my seat to take off my sweater and settle in, her husband, came over to sit in my husband’s seat. He looked at me and said “Oh, I need to sit next to my wife and baby.” I responded, without moving out of his way, that it was my husband’s seat; and he was in the bathroom. He said, “Would he mind sitting in my seat?”, and proceeds to point all the way towards the back of the plane.

I immediately responded “I can speak on behalf of my husband and that would be ‘No’.” They both looked at me with confused looks on their faces like I somehow didn’t have a right to politely decline. Then they tried to get the flight attendant’s attention, but as they did that the person sitting directly behind the woman with the baby lifted herself up from her seat and said ”If you knew you were flying with a baby, you should have made sure your seats were booked together.”

They both looked at each other, then at the lady behind us, and blankly looked at me, while they mumbled something about trying to do just that, but couldn’t for whatever reason. By then my husband was back and hers had already walked away. My husband sat down and I quietly told him was had just occurred (in case her husband might come back and ask him himself, or bring the flight attendant over) and he was glad I didn’t let his seat go. With it being a long flight and him having anxiety about flying, he definitely didn’t want to be sent to the back of the plane alone, and I definitely didn’t want to be alone sitting next to a couple with a small baby for hours across the Atlantic. But I was even more appreciative of the woman behind us who spoke up, just because.

*Update: Since posting this, it’s obvious this is a triggering topic for many, so much so that the term ‘seat switching anxiety’ probably best describes it.

Main takeaways: 1) It’s become common to be asked to switch. 2) It’s your right to keep the seat; not swapping doesn’t make you a bad person. 3) In more cases than not, the person asking will have a worse seat than you. 4) Airlines have perpetuated this problem by charging fees for access to better seats and sometimes don’t even honor the seat assignment, even when those fees are paid. 5) FA’s vary in how they respond, with some asking you to accommodate while others will stand firm in the assigned seating; this is why (as in my case) some people seek out flight attendants when you refuse.*

Safe travels everyone.