Woman Asks Fellow Passenger To Move From Business Class to Economy So She Can Move Her Husband Up “He’s already heading this way!” the passenger recalls the woman telling him in a post shared on the subreddit, ‘Entitled People’
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A Reddit user recounted a shocking request made of him by a fellow passenger.
In a post shared on the Entitled People subreddit, the user canada11235813 recalled an incident in which the woman sitting next to him in business class asked him to voluntarily downgrade his seat so that she could sit next to her husband, who was seated in economy, in business.
The original poster (OP) was on a flight from Toronto to Vancouver on an unnamed airline when he says the woman sitting next to him in a two-seat center pod configuration asked him if he’d mind switching seats with her husband so the couple could sit together.
He said yes assuming that her husband was sitting somewhere else in business class, at which point the woman casually revealed that her husband’s seat was actually 18B — a middle seat in economy.
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“You can’t seriously expect me to swap a pod for a MIDDLE seat at the back of the bus. Are you kidding me?” OP recalled saying, adding that he kept looking around to see if he was being recorded for some kind of YouTube prank.
Not only was she serious, she proceeded to throw a tantrum over OP’s refusal, saying “But you said you would! He’s already heading this way!”
The woman, he says, had originally been seated in economy with her husband, but took a free upgrade when it was offered to her, apparently assuming someone would readily downgrade their seat so she could sit with her spouse.
The OP said that if she could find someone in business class to switch with her husband, he’d move to any pod in the section so that they could sit together in the double pod. Or, she could sit with her husband back in economy.
Seemingly unhappy with these options, he says, she replied, “But we both want to sit together up here!”
Unable to facilitate either option because of the seating assignments, OP writes, she eventually sat down and traveled apart from her husband for the 5-hour flight.
The commenters on the post almost unanimously took the side of the poster.
“Do they really expect people to give up what they paid extra for?” wrote one redditor, adding that, “The airlines should take some accountability here too. Before they upgrade someone they should ask if they are traveling with anyone. And if they see the Karen hair cut ‘No upgrade for you.'”
And while the incident shocked some, several commenters said they’d had a similar experience.
“Same thing happened to me once,” wrote ImprovementFar5054. “She asked if I would swap with her to sit beside her husband in First. Assuming she meant another First class seat, I asked her where and she said 22E. I laughed out loud and she got offended.”
Incidents of passengers getting in a huff after not being able to change from their assigned seat to another one they’d prefer aren’t uncommon — and things often escalate when there’s a child involved in the proposed rearrangement.
A flyer recently recounted on Reddit’s AmITheA—— subreddit, that she was seated in the middle seat between a mother and her son, whom she estimated was around 6 or 7 years old.
“The woman demanded that she MUST sit next to her son and I MUST sit at the aisle so she could sit next to him,” she wrote in the post. After she told the mother that she’d prefer to remain in the seat she booked and did not like to sit in the aisle seat, the mother “started to yell that it is her right to sit next to her son,” she says.
Everyone ended up staying put, but things to a shocking turn when the OP got up to use the restroom. The mother took her temporarily vacant seat, she says. When the young woman returned, she found the mom in her seat and her own jacket and bag “thrown into the aisle.”
The OP got the crew involved and the mother was told to return to her aisle seat.
Reddit commenters were once again largely in agreement with the passenger that she was not “the a—.” “You have the patience of a saint,” one user wrote.
A similar situation went viral in July, when a single traveler declined to give up their seat for a family who had not booked seats together. Commenters battled it out on social media, but the consensus was similar, with most agreeing it’s more than fine to ask if the single passenger would change seats, but that person has the right to say no.
The question of whether or not a solo passenger must give up their seat for a family to sit together is one that travel expert Nicole Campoy Jackson told PEOPLE should not fall on the single flyer.
Jackson said it’s not the displaced passenger’s responsibility to facilitate a seat-swap, but rather up to the airline and flight attendants to offer customer service for the family. When there’s a conflict, “It’s no longer that one passenger’s responsibility,” she said.
“Generally speaking, don’t board a plane expecting passengers to shift for you,” Jackson added. “especially if your seat is not as comfortable as (or more than) theirs.”
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