Plane passenger sparks outrage after refusing to switch first class seats with a 10-year-old

A plane passenger has sparked a debate online after refusing to switch first class seats with a 10-year-old.

Whether it’s the stranger next to you hogging the arm rest or a little kid kicking the back of your seat, plane travel is rarely a smooth ride, let’s face it.

But you’d imagine if anything was going to eradicate those niggles, it would be a seat in first class, right?

Wrong.

A 23-year-old woman took to Reddit’s ‘Am I the A**hole’ (AITA) forum to discuss the predicament she found herself in while travelling to San Francisco recently, having booked her ticket a year beforehand.

Around a month before the trip, the unnamed airline called her to say they wanted to upgrade her seat to first class due to her points and being a member – a proposition that understandably made her ‘excited’, as she’d never flown first class before.

About an hour into the 13-hour flight, however, a flight attendant came up to her and asked if she would be willing to ‘swap seats with a 10-year-old boy who was in economy so he could sit with his family in first class’.

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The woman explained: “From what I was told, the two parents were both members and had also received upgrades also not realising that their son wasn’t able to be upgraded with them. So they got their first-class tickets but he was stuck back at economy.

“The flight attendant began giving me some options as if I had no choice but to move and she was saying things like I’d get another free upgrade in another flight or I could get a full refund for the flight.

“I asked her if there was any chance I could stay in my seat because I genuinely thought I was being kicked out and she said that the two parents and I were the only upgraded passengers on the flight and there were no other first-class seats available so if there was to be any chance for the boy to sit with his family it would only make sense for him to sit in my seat.”

The Reddit user said it would have been a 'different situation’ if the airline had overbooked first class and the child had a purchased ticket, but that she got her upgrade fair-and-square.

“Also, I may have considered it if the parents had bought their tickets but they hadn't either,” she added.

The woman said she had ‘no hate’ for the flight attendant, who was ‘very polite and respectful’ during the exchange and accepted her decision, telling her that they were going to figure it out.

Stela Di/Pixabay

She never saw the parents, as they were sitting far away from her seat, but she did get ‘shamed by an old woman’ in the seat next to her, who told her she made a child sit on their own for 13 hours.

“I get a 13-hour flight alone for a child is the scary part but I saw him walk up and down the isles like every hour to meet his parents so it wasn’t like he was alone,” the woman added, asking: “So AITA, because supposedly this is what an a-hole would do?”

Many people in the comments completely understood where she was coming from, with many saying it was the parents at fault.

One wrote: “Lmao, so not his parents who accepted an upgrade and ditched their kid in economy, it’s the random stranger who’s at fault for making the kid fly alone. Give me a break. NTA.”

Another agreed: “Who's the AH parent that wouldn't sit in economy so their child could be with one of the other parents?! I'm glad the flight attendant was nice, but the fact that they put it on a stranger rather than asking one of the parents (bc the parents clearly weren't going to do it of their own volition) is kinda bs.”

A third pointed out: “That lady could have offered her seat if she had such a beef.”

A fourth added: “I’m sure two people in economy would’ve been glad to swap with the parents!”

Someone else commented: “Unpopular opinion incoming but as someone who spent years working with kids and specifically being the contact point between parents and camp staff? Because there's a specific kind of parent that is HORRIBLY entitled and they are a LOT more common than they should be.”

Topics: Reddit, Travel, World News, Plane Etiquette

Jess Hardiman

Jess is Entertainment Desk Lead at LADbible Group. She graduated from Manchester University with a degree in Film Studies, English Language and Linguistics. You can contact Jess at [email protected].

@Jess_Hardiman