A mother broke down in terms after a passenger refused to give up their seat in Economy Plus so she could sit with her son.
In a recent post shared to the popular “ Am I The A**hole?” Reddit forum, a traveler asked if they were in the wrong for “making a seat swapper cry.” They explained that once they were “settled” in their seat in the Economy Plus section of the plane, a mother came up to her about doing a seat change.
“A woman approaches and asks me to change seats to 32b so her nine-year-old son can sit with her. I ask how much cash she has to repay me for the money I spent on the seat,” the traveler explained. “She says I’m cruel for leaving her son with anxiety sitting alone.”
When they asked the mother if she offered to switch seats with the person who was next to her son, she said no because she “needed the legroom” in her Economy Plus seat. In response, the Reddit user made claims about the mother’s parenting tactics, which upset her.
“I said clearly she cares more about her own comfort than her son’s well-being,” the post continued. “If she cared, she would give up her seat and move to the back. She breaks out in a screaming wail, filled with HOW COULD YOU.’”
However, 10 minutes after the incident, the mother wasn’t sitting in her Economy Plus seat. Instead, the Reddit user noticed a man happily sitting next to her, as he was “grinning about his sweet seat upgrade.” The traveler concluded that after this flight, their partner accused them of questioning the mother’s “parenting in public and making her cry.”
In the comments of the post, the traveler made a few clarifications about when they booked their ticket and doubled down on why they said no to changing seats.
“When I booked my seat, hers was already taken so she booked first. Didn’t look like poor planning, looked like she only wanted to pay for one premium seat and wanted to guilt me into giving up my seat,” they explained.
The Reddit post has quickly gone viral, with more than 21,000 upvotes. In the comments, multiple people criticized the mother for not buying a seat next to her child on the plane beforehand.
“She’s in the wrong for one - not being able to plan and book ahead of time so her son isn’t left alone two - not being able to put aside her comfort ahead of her ‘precious son’ and three - thinking that anyone owes her anything for being a poor planner,” one person wrote.
“Her tears don’t change the fact that she prioritized comfort over her son’s needs. That’s on her,” another claimed.
A third person responded: “Whenever ANYONE is asking to swap seats, it’s ALWAYS for a better one and they always throw a fit like this to try and get what they want when told no. People like this should be removed from the plane.”
This isn’t the first time that a passenger’s experience on a flight has gone viral. Last month, a traveler in the middle seat shared her “female rage” when two men on either side of her had stretched their legs far enough that she appeared squished into her seat.
“Why would anyone EVER need that much room??? I tried to get him to move but he wouldn’t,” she wrote in the caption of her video.
