A woman has shared how an ‘entitled’ passenger tried to bully her into swapping seats on a plane – but she stood herground and remained in her pre-booked seat, much to the passenger’s annoyance
A passenger has been praised for refusing to give up her plane seat so a ‘tall man’ could enjoy the extra legroom. She explained how she was travelling on a three-hour flight from Memphis International Airport to Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport – and made sure to pre-book an aisle seat for the journey.
But just minutes after boarding the plane, a 6’6-tall passenger asked her to swap seats so he could ‘stretch out his long legs’. Rather than agree to the move, she informed him he’d pre-booked the seat for a reason and wished to stay put. However, this didn’t go down well with the ‘entitled’ passenger, who went on to make her life hell for the next few hours.
She said on Reddit: “I upgraded to an aisle seat in premium economy, a couple arrives towards the end of boarding, both sitting in the middle seats of our row. The guy next to me sits then turns to ask if I would swap seats with him because ‘as you can see I’m very tall’. I replied no I’m sorry, I paid for this seat and would prefer to stay.
“He immediately was angry and began complaining to his partner, across the aisle/over me, that he couldn’t do this, he was going to have to get up like 20 times to go to the restroom, he was never flying this airline again.
The ‘entitled’ passenger then started pushing on the chair in front of him while fidgeting in his seat – and apologised saying ‘You’re going to be feeling me push all flight. I have such long legs and this middle seat isn’t working’.
She added: “He took to texting to who knows about how pissed he is I didn’t give up my seat all the way until we are up in the air. For the rest of the flight, he was restlessly shifting positions and moving the entire row every time he readjusted, putting the armrest up then down, pushing his knees then his butt into my seat, continued to get up multiple times, left for long periods (joy!) to sit in the restroom to ‘stretch his legs’, complained to multiple flight attendants.”
Finally, a flight attendant moved him to an open seat a couple of rows back – but he continued to complain about her for not swapping seats in the first place. She said: “He was just a jerk and kept trying to get a rise out of me, but I never took the bait and let him just flail about and ignored him completely.”
While most users praised her for standing her ground, others slammed the ‘entitled’ passenger for trying to bully someone into moving. One user said: “How are people this entitled? Bruh, if you don’t want a middle seat then buy a ticket with seat selection and pick a non-middle seat. This is so mystifying to me.”
Another user added: “Clearly someone accustomed to being ‘rewarded’ for his bad behavior. Good for you not giving it to him.” A third user said: “Thank you for not rewarding bad behavior. Helps us all.
“I’d be tempted to offer to sell him your upgrade. If he took it I’d get up 20 times in the next three hours. ‘You see I have circulation issues in my legs so my Doctor says I should stand every 10 minutes. I know you understand.’.”
