Woman With Baby Got Furious When Man On Plane Refused To Give Up His Extra Legroom Seat For Her Husband

Oct 25, 2022 by apost team

Every traveler wants the best seat on a plane, more so if it’s a long ride that would entail lots of stretching. So, yes, getting more leg space is the best way to have a comfortable flight. While it can be planned ahead, you’ll never know what comes your way. But the question is, are you willing to give up a much-coveted seat at the request of the passenger next to you? Moreso, are you willing to move to another row?

While those questions remain to be answered for most of us, a man who traveled from Europe to Asia for 10 hours with his wife spoke about it when he shared the exact same experience he had via a Reddit thread.

“My wife and I were traveling on a 10-hour flight from Europe to Asia last week. We booked our tickets well in advance and also managed to book the specific seats we wanted — two seats in the first row in the middle column of seats - it was a Boeing 787 with the seat configuration being 3 columns with 3 seats each. We paid for these seats as it was going to be a long journey and wanted the extra leg space,” he said.

The man narrated how a woman holding a baby seated in the middle seat between them approached him to switch seats with her husband. The woman said she needed her husband beside her to help her with the baby.

“We had booked the 2 aisles on the off chance that the middle seat may be empty but with full intention for me to switch to the middle seat if the passenger wished to sit in one of the aisles and not between us,” he said. 

“This woman, before I even had a chance to put my bag in the overhead compartment, asked me ‘Can I be really cheeky and ask you to switch seats with my husband?’” he added.

“She then pointed towards her husband sat in the second row on the left side column of the aircraft (only the first row has extra leg space and requires additional payment to book the seat). She then told me that her husband needs to be next to her to help with the baby,” he continued.

But since there was no extra legroom in the row where the man was seated, he had to refuse her request. The man also pointed out that he paid for the seat because he wanted to get extra legroom. To his surprise, the woman claimed that her husband also paid for the same seat with extra legroom but was placed in the second row. Throughout their conversation, the man’s wife who was seated in the same row remained quiet.

While he tried to stay firm, a steward came to talk to them about switching seats. “She then threw daggers at me for some time. The baby started crying after a while as well,” he said.

The steward came back and told them there were 2 vacant seats in the other first rows so they were offered those seats. “We ended up moving there but could hear this lady animatedly make comments about us to her husband from behind for some time after that,” he wrote in his post. 

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He asked if he was in the wrong after his parents-in-law told him he should have just moved the moment he was asked by the woman since she had a baby.

“Quite coincidentally read an article about a similar incident that happened with mixed opinions in the comments section. So ‘Am I The A*****e?’” he said.

After sharing his experience, people who read his story on Reddit told them he was not in the wrong and said that having a baby on a flight doesn’t give anyone a free pass to any form of entitlement.

“100%. Parents like to think they're entitled to special treatment just because they have kids. I'm childfree and I'm honestly so over the audacity,” one user said.

“This omg. The world acts like people with kids have automatic entitlements and people without don't have a life, too,” another user remarked.

He went on to explain his side of the story after it blew up to give more context, as he said he and his wife are both tall people so giving up their seats to move to another row without enough legroom was impossible.

“Both my wife and I are tall people who prefer aisle seats with leg space. Like I already mentioned, that was with a plan for me to move into the middle seat if the passenger who got it wanted to exchange, so I’m not sure what difference it would have made if we just booked an aisle and the middle — this couple couldn’t be seated together regardless,” he said.

Do you think the man was right to not give up his seat? Or do you think it was fair for the woman to want to exchange seats with him since she had a baby? Let us know your thoughts and pass this on to anyone who might be interested to read this story!