The debate around plane seats is always a contentious topic.
If you’re a frequent flier, chances are you’ll have run into a situation where you’ve been asked by someone if you’d be willing to swap seats. This can be for a variety of reasons ranging from parents and children who weren’t able to book seats together, to people who fancy their chances at bagging a window seat.
Most people will agree that if you’ve booked your seat on a flight, you have no obligation to give it up to anyone. Nothing is stopping you from being a nice person and agreeing to switch if you want to, but you’re not expected to and you would be within your rights to refuse to switch if you weren’t fond of the offer.
But what would you do if the person who asked to switch seats with you had a good reason, such as they didn’t want their kids to be alone or they had a disability? For some of us, that would sway our decision as we would see the other person as more “in need” than ourselves.
One man, however, has said he refused to swap seats with a couple on a recent plane journey even after learning that one of the pair was disabled – and was even chastised by the flight attendant for it.
In a post on Reddit, the man explained he was on a four-hour flight with his girlfriend, who has a fear of flying and has to take medication before she boards a plane in order to make it through the trip.
He also said the plane seating arrangement was done in blocks of three with an aisle in the middle, and they had booked seats B and C on their row, which were the middle seat and the aisle seat.
When they boarded the plane, however, they found that a woman was sitting in one of their seats alongside her husband who was sitting in seat A, the window seat next to them. The couple had actually booked seats A and D – the aisle seat on the other side – but was hoping that the man and his girlfriend would be willing to swap.
The man wrote: “When we boarded, an older couple were sat in seats 1A and 1B. They were given 1A and 1D, and offered us 1C and 1D. We politely refused this offer and explained that we’d booked 1B and 1C as we wished to sit together.”
To his shock, a flight attendant jumped in and actually took the side of the older couple, claiming that one of them was disabled so the younger couple should give them their seat so they could sit together.
However, the man remained firm and declined the offer again, causing the flight attendant to “roll her eyes” before the woman sitting in 1B eventually moved to let them sit down.
Commenters on the post defended the man’s actions, however, as they stated that if the couple needed “special accommodations” then they should have raised that with the airline at the point of booking their flight.
One person said: “You and your partner booked those seats in advance; they are yours. If the elderly couple needed special accommodations they should’ve figured that out in advance while booking.”
And another added: “You booked specific seats and you were 100% entitled to use them. I wish flight attendants would quit asking people directly if they are willing to switch seats and instead ask if anyone would be willing to switch seats so others can sit together. When asked directly and you decline, it just gets awkward.”