Passenger refuses to swap seats to let family sit together on a six-hour flight – so who’s in the right?

A PASSENGER refused to swap seats so a husband could sit with his wife and child on a plane.

Reddit user u/throw44245t363 explained that they initially said yes, but after they saw the seat they would have to move to, they demanded to switch back.

They wrote on the community sharing website: "Yesterday I was flying home on an aeroplane. I have a nice aisle seat and to the left of me is a mum and her six-year-old son.

"This man comes up and taps my shoulder and asks me if I can swap seats with him.

"He tells me that he is in the back of the plane and that he wants to sit with his family as this is his son's first flight, and he said his seat is an aisle seat too.

"I'm said sure, so I move to the back of the plane and go to his seat and there is this really obese guy sitting in the middle.

"First he has the armrests up, and then when I sit down he puts them down, but he starts overflowing into my seat as well as the guy to the right of him.

"This was a six-hour flight and I was not going to be uncomfortable for that long.

"I go back to the dad, and I am like 'look man, I want my seat back' and he starts to act dumb on why. I am like 'dude, no'. He then starts being like 'please I want to sit with my son'.

"I just go to the flight attendant and I am like 'this guy is in my seat and he refuses to leave'. The flight attendant confronts him and he moves back to his old chair.

"For the rest of the flight the guy's son and wife basically stare like they hate me. I just put in my Airpods and keep to myself for the rest of the flight."

The post has been voted on nearly 4,000 times and received 500 comments from people who all agree the passenger did nothing wrong, and that the father should have paid to reserve a seat with his family if it was important to him.

One person wrote: "You initially thought you were being asked to switch your seat for a similar seat. When you learned this was not the case, you were no longer interested in the deal.

"You aren't the a**hole - having children doesn't automatically give people more rights than those around them."

Another put: "Families that want to sit together should pay the fee to do so."

A third wrote: "He knowingly omitted information to make his request seem more reasonable than it was. If he wanted seats with the family he should've paid for them."

Someone else warned flyers they should never agree to a seat swap without checking the chair they'll be moving to first.

They wrote: "As a very frequent flyer, NEVER give up your seat until you confirm that you will be comfortable in the other seat.

"You don't have to give up a seat for anyone. Yes, sometimes it's nice to do, but no reason to suffer because someone else didn't book correctly."

The Internet was divided after a woman refused to give up an empty row of seats during a flight to let a group of friends sit together.

A passenger went to extreme lengths for comfort on a plane - but other flyers were not impressed.