'Plus sized' passenger refuses to give up extra seat for toddler on flight. AITA?
"AITA for refusing to give up me extra seat for someone else’s toddler on a flight that I paid for because I’m plus size?"
I 34F am obese. I’m actively working toward losing weight and I’ve made progress but I’m still obese as I’m typing this.
I’m going over to see my brother and his husband for Christmas across the country and because I’m fat, I booked an extra seat so everyone can be more comfortable. I know it sucks having to pay for an extra seat but it is what it is.
I know Southwest Airlines has this “customer of size” policy but I’ve had some bad experiences with Southwest even before I was obese so I wasn’t doing that and it’s mostly my fault I even got fat.
Everything goes smoothly from checking in to security and boarding, at least at first. This woman comes to my row with a boy who appeared to be about a year old. She told me to squeeze in to one seat so her son could sit in the other. She told me, not asked. I told her no and that I paid for this seat for the extra space.
She makes a big fuss over it, which got the flight attendant’s attention. She told the flight attendant I was stealing the seat from her son, then I showed my boarding passes, proving that I , in fact paid for the extra seat.
The flight attendant asked me if I could try to squeeze in, but I said no, that I wanted the extra seat I paid for. The boy, who the mom said is 18 months old was supposed to sit in her lap so he could do just that.
The flight attendant eventually told the mom to put her son in her lap. I got dirty looks and passive-aggressive remarks from her for the entire flight and I do feel a little bad because the boy looked hard to control so AITA?
Let's see what readers thought.
welkitty writes:
NTA. You paid for that seat, it’s yours. An email to SWA asking them to remind their FAs to enforce the seat policy would be warranted, too. You asked the FA for help and she told you to “squeeze into one seat” for the unticketed child. You might even get some miles or goodies for it.
limpconsideration586 writes:
NTA. You paid for the seat. You shouldn’t have even had to but given that airlines aren’t even required to have ADA accessible toilet stalls on their planes it’s likely that body size discrimination is even lower than this on their list.
The flight attendant should be fired for even asking, and the mom should’ve been booted from the flight (and the airline in perpetuity) for harassing a paying passenger.
sillyfilly04 writes:
You are NTA. If the person with the toddler didn’t want to lap seat him, then she should’ve bought an extra seat like you did. I would call Southwest and be very polite but unyielding regarding this experience.
I know you don’t prefer flying Southwest but at the very least get some points and a goddamn drink coupon out of this. Despite you being obese, you did the right thing to make yourself comfortable and shouldn’t be shamed (body or else) for this trip. I’m sorry you had a miserable experience, this time of year always sucks in travel.