It felt almost as good as sitting next to the empty middle seat.
American Airlines frequent flyers shared the moment they watched a seat stealer get her spot after she returned to her assigned seat about 27 rows back — much to the delight of other passengers. It was about.
A Redditor who said he flies almost every week for work shared a list of things his fellow travelers do that annoy him. Under the r/AmericanAirlines subreddit,
“Always trying to take seats that don’t belong to them, blocking boarding or just plain rude behavior,” he began his now-viral speech.
The poster revealed that they saw a woman, who had purchased seat 35B, sitting comfortably in seat 8C next to her mother. A few minutes later, the original owner of the seat arrived and noticed that the woman was in the wrong place.
According to the post, the seat stealer attempted to negotiate with the original 8C passenger to swap seats.
“The seat stealer then says, ‘Can you go to my seat because I want to sit next to my mom.’ Person [whose seat] Asked what seat it was and the seat stealer said 35B,’ the Redditor wrote.
“I don’t know what happened in my mind, but I immediately said, “Are you serious?! Go from 8D to 35B? You’re crazy,” he added.
This outburst caused other passengers to laugh at the would-be seat stealer, who panicked and ran back to his rightful place after being refused again by the original 8D passenger.
“So the person who stole the seat had to get up and go to the back, while doing so she glared at me. As she stared, I told her, ‘You can stare at me whenever you want, but [you’re] A– Still going back to 35B!’ the Redditor wrote.
“It felt good to replace the person who stole the seat. Small wins matter!”
Comments on the thread were quick to praise the unidentified passenger and the seat protector.
“I like to put seat thieves back in their place. It’s a guilty pleasure for me,” revealed another airline flight attendant.
“Maybe next time mom will book seats together, even if it costs more. Some people are so entitled!” One user commented.
“Did everyone clap? I would have clapped,” said another.
“This weird thing happened to me on a United flight and the woman who tried to steal my seat had pretty bad plastic surgery. There has to be some kind of correlation there,” said another.
Some users wondered why the seat stealer’s mother didn’t buy a ticket with her daughter — or why the stealer didn’t try to buy a seat in the first place.
One user suggested, “If she wants to sit near her mother, she should ask the guy sitting in 35C if he wants to sit in row 8.”
