Woman defended after refusing to give up her plane seat for a mother to sit next to her child

Plane etiquette is once again brought into question as to whether or not people should give up their seats for someone else.

In a recent Reddit post shared to the popular “Am I The A**hole?” subreddit, one plane passenger was asked to give up her seat on the plane for a mother who wanted to sit next to her child.

She explained that during this flight she was flying across the country to attend her sister’s wedding, and the mother and son had spent most of their time “demanding things from the airport staff”. The Reddit poster’s seat on the plane had been a middle seat, and soon after she sat down the mother and son appeared.

“They had the window seat and the seat and the aisle seat. Directly 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,” the post read.

The woman told the mother that she didn’t like sitting in the aisle seat and wasn’t going to move. “She then started to yell that it is her right to sit next to her son. I politely told her that I would be willing to change seats with her son (who had the window seat) and she continued yelling that she NEEDED the seat and that she won’t accept that her son has to give up his seat as he is a child and deserves the window seat,” the traveller wrote.

At this point, a flight attendant stepped in to make sure that everyone was sitting in their proper seat. Although the mother still wanted to get revenge on the Reddit poster as she constantly kicked the traveller “on accident” and her son was annoying her “on purpose”.

“When I went to the toilet I thought it was finally over as she might have accepted it but when I came back she was in my seat and my jacket and my bag which I left there were thrown into the aisle. I called a stewardess and they made her get back to her place,” the post read.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/1999qzl/aita_for_not_giving_up_my_plane_seat/

Following the post, many people took to the comments to defend her stubbornness to not move seats. Some also noted that she did give the mother an option to take the window seat, just not the aisle.

“Some people purposely book the window and aisle seats hoping that no one will take the middle so they can get the entire row to themselves. Personally, I think this practice is just greedy. I’m willing to bet this is exactly what she did and got pissed off that it backfired. You have no obligation to give up your seat and even gave her an option which she refused – good for you for sticking to your guns!” one commenter wrote.

“This comes up a LOT,” another comment in the woman’s defence read. “If she wanted to sit next to her son, she could have paid extra for seats, or reserved sooner, or at the LEAST she could have requested POLITELY. Your seat is YOUR seat and you are not obligated to switch for any reason.”

“You should have said ‘lack of preparedness on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine,’” a third commenter wrote.

“Obviously NTA. You paid for your seat and are entitled to sit in it. The lady could have easily booked seats together if she was more prepared.”