Uproar over parents’ request for woman to give up first class seat for son

A woman has taken to social media to ask if she did the right thing when she was asked to give up her first class seat, sparking outrage.

The debate about swapping seats for families on planes rages on, with one young woman taking to social media to share she refused to swap her first class seat with a 10-year-old’s economy seat so he could sit with his parents.

The anonymous 23-year-old claims she was on a 13-hour flight to San Francisco, California when a flight attendant approached her and asked if she would be willing to swap seats with the boy so he could sit with his family in first class.

The woman, who shared her story on Reddit asking if she had done the right thing, said she had been upgraded to first class more than a month before the trip and understood the parents of the boy had received upgrades too not realising their son couldn’t get one as well.

“So they got their first class tickets but he was stuck back at economy,” she wrote.

“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.”

Would you give up your first class seat you were upgraded to for a child? Picture: istock

The woman said she chose to stay in her seat despite the offers and the flight attendant was polite and accepted her decision.

“Never saw the parents, they were sitting far away from me,” she said.

“I did get shamed by an old woman in the seat next to me who told me that I 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 [aisles] like every hour to meet his parents so it wasn’t like he was alone.”

The frequent flyer said if the boy had purchased the seat and first class was overbooked, it would be “a different story”.

The boy sat in economy after his parents upgraded to first class. Picture: istock

The post attracted 7000 comments, with many furious the parents even asked for the woman to give up her seat while they kept theirs.

“I’m sure two people in economy would’ve been glad to swap with the parents,” one of the most popular comments read.

Another person criticised the older woman who had shamed her: “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.”

“That lady could have offered her seat if she had such a beef,” agreed another.

“One of the parents could have gone into economy to join the kid. Why did one of them even leave the kid in economy alone to begin with?” questioned one person.

Another angry traveller shared their frustration over a woman who had “the audacity” to request a seat swap so she could sit next to her kid. Picture: iStock

Another Reddit post going viral is that of a woman in a window seat who was asked to swap with a mum’s middle seat so she could sit with her child.

The traveller was sitting next to a toddler, who was sitting in a middle seat, and the mum was in the row directly behind them, also seated in the middle.

“She asked me — and just me — to switch with her so she could have my window seat (next to her daughter) and I’d take her middle seat a row back,” the Reddit user wrote.

“Hell to the f*** no. Worse is we were surrounded by others from her tour group that she could’ve asked for a three-way trade instead. Or the tour operator.

“The audacity to ask just me and expect an inferior trade on my side.”

People in the comments on that post were divided.

One person, who described themself as a “parent of a toddler”, expressed shock that the original poster would prefer to sit next to “someone else’s unaccompanied toddler” instead of moving.