Plane passenger sparks outrage after refusing to swap first class seats with 10-year-old

Steve Hopkins

When upgrades cause problems

A plane passenger who lucked into a first-class seat was then asked to give it up for a 10-year-old.

But the woman didn’t, sparking quite the debate, in what is now becoming a long-running story in the media.

However, unlike other stories, this one is a little more complicated.

The 23-year-old traveller detailed on Reddit’s, Am I the A****** how she booked her ticket to San Francisco a year beforehand and a month before she was due to fly the airline called to say they wanted to upgrade her to first class due to her points and being a member.

Like most travellers, the young woman jumped at the chance and was quite “excited” having never flown up front before.

About an hour into the 13-hour journey, she was in for another surprise.

A flight attendant asked her if she would be willing to “swap seats” with a 10-year-old boy who was in economy so he could sit with his family in first class.

In her post the woman explained that she was told that the boy’s parents were also members and had been upgraded, “not realising that their son wasn’t able to be upgraded with them”.

So the parents were sitting pretty in first-class and their son was in economy.

The woman said she was then presented with options as if it wasn’t her choice to move.

“The flight attendant began giving me some options as if I had no choice but to move and she was saying things like I’d get another free upgrade in another flight or I could get a full refund for the flight.

“I asked her if there was any chance I could stay in my seat because I genuinely thought I was being kicked out and she said that the two parents and I were the only upgraded passengers on the flight and there were no other first-class seats available so if there was to be any chance for the boy to sit with his family it would only make sense for him to sit in my seat.”

The traveller went on to say it would have been a “different situation” if the airline had overbooked first class and the child had a purchased ticket, but that she got her upgrade fair-and-square. Also, she added, the parents also didn’t buy first-class tickets, so they were all in the same position.

The woman said she had “no hate” for the flight attendant, who was “very polite and respectful” during the exchange and accepted her decision, telling her that they were going to figure it out.

The woman never saw the parents, but said she got “shamed by an old woman” in the seat next to her, who told her she made a child sit on their own for 13 hours.

“I get a 13-hour flight alone for a child is the scary part but I saw him walk up and down the isles like every hour to meet his parents so it wasn’t like he was alone,” the woman added.

She asked the forum, is this what an “a-hole would do?”

Many people in the comments completely understood her position, saying the call was the parents, not hers.

One wrote: “Lmao, so not his parents who accepted an upgrade and ditched their kid in economy, it’s the random stranger who’s at fault for making the kid fly alone. Give me a break. NTA.”

Another agreed: “Who’s the AH parent that wouldn’t sit in economy so their child could be with one of the other parents?! I’m glad the flight attendant was nice, but the fact that they put it on a stranger rather than asking one of the parents (bc the parents clearly weren’t going to do it of their own volition) is kinda bs.”

Another person pointed out that they were sure two people in economy would have been “glad to swap with the parents.”

However, a commenter who said they had spent years working with kids and being the contact point between parents and camp staff pointed out that there is a “specific kind of parent that is horribly entitled and they are a lot more common than they should be.”

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