A man was left baffled when a family of plane passengers lied to a flight attendant in order to get him to switch seats with them – but he ended up getting the last laugh
Unless you can shell out the money for an upgrade, travelling by plane is often a draining experience. You can find yourself sitting in a cramped space for hours on end next to a complete stranger, and it’s often luck of the draw whether your seatmate has any bizarre habits that make you want to tear your hair out.
But one man has claimed that sometimes, not even getting upgraded to a fancier class makes you exempt from rude passengers who expect you to accommodate them. In fact, he asserted that on one recent flight he took, a family attempted to lie to a flight attendant so that they could take his seat from him.
In a post on Reddit, the man explained he decided to book business class on a recent flight because he could bag himself a window seat while guaranteeing that the middle seat remained unbooked, meaning he’d have a bit more room.
When he boarded his flight, he took his seat across from an older man sitting in the aisle seat on the other side of him. Moments later, however, the other man’s wife and son came in and asked if he would switch seats with them to allow the family to sit together.
But there was one problem – the wife and child were in economy class, so swapping seats would have meant a downgrade.
Warning: The below Reddit post contains strong language.
The man refused this unfavourable offer, and the family made a counteroffer in which the son would sit in the free middle seat with his dad while the mum went back to economy. It turned out they lied to flight attendants on board the plane to make this deal happen.
In his Reddit post, he wrote: “His wife and son came in, asking me to switch (business for economy) so they could all sit there. Then, [they] told me that if I didn’t switch with the wife, the son would sit in the middle at least. [The dad] reasoned that I didn’t need an empty seat next to me and claimed the stewardess allowed it.
“Turned out, [the flight attendant] said it was possible if the other passenger agreed, to which they replied that I was family, so I would 100% agree.”
The man refused to move and told the flight attendants the truth, and the family were eventually made to go back to the seats they had been assigned.
He added: “I didn’t budge. The son and wife had to stay in the economy, and his father spent almost four hours muttering passive-aggressive comments. Whenever I took off my headphones, he was still going…
“Like what the f**k. But shoutout to the stewardesses (another one had to come, because they refused to go back to their seats) for staying professional.”
Commenters on the post were shocked at the family’s behaviour, especially considering that the dad could have swapped with someone in economy class to ensure his family could sit together, but didn’t want to give up his luxury experience.
One person said: “He didn’t give up his seat for his family, just wanted you to.”
Another added: “It’s wild how some people feel entitled to what others paid extra for. Lying about being your family? That’s next-level manipulative. You had every right to your seat and your space. Props to you for standing your ground, and huge respect to the flight attendants for backing you up.”
A third wrote: “The family 100% booked like this on purpose. Get three business class upgrades for the price of one. They probably saw a ‘travel hack’ on TikTok and then were mad when the scam didn’t work. Good on you for not budging.”