Was this rude?

Let’s play another game of “Was this rude?”! The last time I asked this question we had a great discussion. This morning while flying to Dallas I saw something that seemed questionable to me etiquette-wise. This situation is (IMO) definitely not as controversial as last time, but I still thought I would put it out to the community.

This morning I flew on American to Dallas. I boarded with the Elites, and got comfortable in my window seat. A guy sat in the aisle seat, but didn’t put on his seatbelt or get stuff out—I assume he was waiting to see if someone needed the middle seat. As time passed, the plane (and overhead bins) got more and more full. Eventually I heard a women say, “Mind if I slip in front of you?” and moved (without waiting for an answer) into the space between the guy and the seat in front of him. He assumed (as did I) that the woman needed to get into the middle seat, and moved to stand up and get out of her way. “Oh, don’t get up,” she said. “I’m just waiting to get to my seat up there. I had to put my bag way in the back!” So, the guy just kind of sat there awkwardly while the woman stood very very close to him and waited to get to the front of the plane.

I’m of two minds about this. On the one hand, I’ve seen flight attendants do it often and it doesn’t seem rude then. Plus, well, if you have to get to the front of the plane how else can you do it? But it just seems like it would be super uncomfortable for both parties. Of course, the woman didn’t seem uncomfortable at all, like she did this all the time.

Readers, what do you think? Is it rude to stand in the row in front of someone? What could she have done instead? What would you have done?

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