A man wonders if he made a mistake by refusing to switch seats with another passenger on his flight.
In a post on the Am I the A**hole forum on Reddit, a husband wrote about a flight he took with his wife from Dublin, Ireland, to Washington, DC. The thirty-something couple discovered they had the entire row to themselves, so he moved to the aisle seat while his wife remained in the window seat before the plane took off.
According to the man, the first four and a half hours of the flight passed without incident, until a passenger in the aisle seat in front of them approached his friend and announced that his friend would now take the available middle seat between the couple to escape from a crying baby.
“She didn't ask, she told us this was happening,” he wrote, noting there were three hours of flight left. He asked her if the flight attendants were aware of this change and after notifying them, the flight attendants informed him that there was an “arrangement where they could take an available seat in the aisle but could not alter anyone's seating arrangement.”
Upon hearing this, the man, who was reluctant to allow the change, alleged that the passenger started complaining about being assigned the middle seat, arguing that he should not even be sitting in the aisle seat. After sitting there for almost five hours, the man noticed that he and his wife had already spread their items throughout the row.
After the passenger and her friend went to talk to the flight attendant for five minutes, the passenger returned to her seat but yelled at her husband for refusing to move. He recounted that she was “saying that 'her friend of hers wouldn't be sitting there, not because she wasn't allowed to, but because I was incredibly rude' and that I was a 'fucking moron.' “
The husband wrote that he ignored her and kept his eyes focused on the show he had been watching the entire flight.
“The only thing I did in all this time was ask to speak to the flight attendant,” he wrote. “I didn't say anything else to this woman, even though I would have liked her.”
Users flocked to the comments section to express their opinions, with some saying he was right to call the flight attendant and check if he and his wife could stay where they were sitting.
“Absolutely in consultation with the [flight attendant] “It was the right decision,” one person commented. “He [flight attendant’s] We need to know where people have been transferred in case of emergencies. It is one thing to change seats and another to completely change rows and seats. That's what they need to know. “It is part of the possibility of identifying passengers in emergency situations.”
“An empty seat on the plane (within the same cabin) is a surprise benefit. Barring exceptional situations, that benefit normally belongs to the first person to claim it,” someone else wrote. “You are suggesting that more than half of the flight that benefit be changed to benefit another passenger. [Original poster] rightly had the superior right to the empty seat, and clearly the [flight attendant] agreed.”
Another added: “Meh. You will be served in order of arrival.”
However, others believed that the passenger and her friend were justified in trying to get the seat.
“You paid for two seats, not three,” someone else added. “You didn't ask the [flight attendant] because you wanted to “check the rules.” You asked because you didn't want to lose your space and you hoped that [flight attendant] would not allow him to move. “They assigned you a middle seat.”
They continued: “So, according to the [flight attendant], the woman could have sat in the aisle seat, once you moved to the middle seat you were actually assigned. She is something of a [a**hole] as well as for his rude attitude and behavior.”
