The Right To Refuse

As the ground fell away beneath us, I started to relax, leaving my worries back down on earth, where they belonged.

We - my conference-bound co-workers and I - had made it through the airport with a minimum of drama or delays. I found it worth mentioning, because that was rarely the case, given who we were travelling with. Lila was seemingly allergic to things like forward planning, and had never met an inconvenience too small to raise a stink over. Because she was the CEO’s niece and the daughter of the company's biggest investor, her problems were made into our problems, even when we wanted nothing to do with them.

Suddenly needing an upgraded seat or extra baggage allowance that she forgot to organise until we were at the check-in counter, and expecting one of us to swap when there were none left. Packing her wallet in her check-in luggage, and of course she didn't have her credit card saved on her phone like a sensible person. Something was wrong with her hotel room, could she share/take over someone else's room?

It had reached the point where we all paid for our upgrades privately, so that Lila (and her uncle, when we complained to HR) couldn't claim that since the company was paying, Lila could claim her preferred seat.

We also paid for priority boarding, so we could be safely on the plane while Lila was still harassing the gate attendants.

Now that we were safely in the air, the flight attendants didn't let passengers roam between cabins without very good reason. Better yet, Lila had no outside influence to pull on them. She would have to be very quick on her feet to come bother me in business class now.

My neighbor was a quiet woman who looked like she was just waiting for permission to recline her seat before spending the rest of the flight unconscious. I didn't blame her. From the few words we had exchanged, her lilting accent implied this flight being only the final leg of a long trip. She had the aisle seat, and while there was enough room to edge around her if I needed to get out for whatever reason, she also provided an extra barricade, if I happened to need it.

The seat-belt sign turned off with a soft 'ding', and I debated whether to recline my seat now, or get a bit of work done first. I'd just resolved on a short nap when a familiar and much-dreaded whine cut through my peace and quiet. "Now can you swap seats? The flight attendant said I had to wait until the seat-belt sign was off before I could ask you."

I bit back my first three responses, none of them polite or even civil. "Where are you sitting?"

Lila scowled. "A middle seat, about halfway back. I brought my bag with me, so you'll just have to take yours back, and there's room in the overhead locker."

My neighbor lifted one side of her sleep mask, her expression thoroughly disbelieving, as the man across the aisle sent me an incredulous, empathic look. Reassured that the rest of the cabin wouldn't be pressuring me to swap just so Lila would shut up and go away, I reached for my headphones. "No."

Lila blinked. "What do you mean, no?"

My neighbor, halfway through reclining her seat, put it up, in case she needed to intervene. Hopefully, it wouldn't be necessary. "I mean that unless and until I see a bank transfer confirmation reimbursing me for the cost of the private upgrade, I'm not going anywhere. You'll get the same answer from the others, too, before you go bothering them."

Lila burst into loud, noisy crocodile tears, her other favourite tactic to pressure us into compliance. My neighbour made an annoyed sound and pulled her eyemask off entirely. "Young lady, stop that infernal racket and return to your seat, if you have no legitimate business being in the cabin."

This might actually be the first time Lila had to deal with uncompromising refusal. “But-“

My neighbor turned to me, ignoring her. “Do you want to change seats?”

I shook my head, “Very emphatically not.”

She turned back to Lila, doing an accurate impersonation of a thundercloud, “Then you have your answer. Aviation Law is far stricter that police discretion; I recommend that you don’t give the flight crew cause to exercise their authority.”

As if summoned by magic or ironic timing (or possibly someone fed up with the commotion pressing the attendant call button), a flight attendant approached with intent. Lila exercised common sense for perhaps the first time in her life, and returned to economy as directed.

Id probably pay for it as soon as Lila could run crying to her uncle, but for now, I could enjoy the promise of a peaceful flight.