‘I just got so pissed’: Man rants about being moved from plane seat for mother and baby

‘We booked these tickets MONTHS ago and they wanted to just give them to a mom and a crying baby,’ says irate passenger

A man has slammed an airline which switched his plane seats so that a mother and baby could sit in them.

In the rant shared to online forum Reddit – titled “They almost forcefully gave my plane seat to a mom with a baby” – the man said that he and his partner had paid extra to book bulkhead seats, at the front of the cabin, as it was a transatlantic flight and “we wanted to be more comfortable”.

“Then three days before our trip we get a email that says your seats have been changed to a few rows back,” he continued.

“Mmm what?? We got downgraded but we paid extra for those seats??

“So naturally we were both upset and instantly called the airline support... which took two hours of waiting.”

He claimed that when he got through to the airline’s customer service, they explained that a mother and baby needed those front-of-cabin seats.

The passenger was infuriated, saying: “We booked these tickets MONTHS ago and they wanted to just give them to a mom and a crying baby... that’s gonna be on my plane now??

“Also this is a 10-hour plane ride btw it’s not like a short trip why would this mom bring her baby anyway.”

The man said that airline staff told him the mother needed “easy access to the bathrooms” and “to put her baby bed in front and all that”, presumably alluding to the baby cots often found in front of bulkhead seats.

“After a lot of back and forth we got upgraded seats; not first class but good seats with ‘the same legroom’,” wrote the put-out man.

“I don’t know, I just got so pissed – why is a mother travelling with such a young child? Why did they act like I was the crazy one for not wanting to give up our seats we paid for to a ’helpless mother’ who needs it?” he concluded.

While some Reddit users agreed with the rant, others felt the man wasn’t being understanding enough about the parent and small child’s needs.

“So you basically had to spend 2+ hours of your life arguing with someone to get what you paid for... That sucks honestly... You should tweet about the airline and tag their official twitter handle,” wrote one commenter.

In the comments, the original poster said the flight had been with Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) and that he would avoid travelling with them in future.

“If a mom and kid want special seats they should book especially early. Snooze ya lose would be my policy (my actual policy would involve no kids on airplane but yea),” wrote another user.

“If they want those seats to be given to parents with babies, they shouldn’t sell them to other people and should just keep them reserved as parent seats,” suggested another travel fan.

One user felt the couple simply should have been warned in advance that their seats could change.

“So this is common for the bulkheads because on larger planes this is where the bassinet seats are. I used to be a travel agent and even if somebody paid to reserve those seats we always had to tell them that it’s possible they’ll be changed if a parent needed the bassinets,” they said.

“This sucks. However, it’s important to note that infants are seated at the bulkhead on long haul flights due to the location of the baby bassinet,” agreed another.

Some spoke out against what they felt was “parent shaming” about babies or children being on flights.

“You sound like a genuinely miserable, terrible person,” commented one person.

Earlier this week, model and Instagram personality Vogue Williams ranted on her podcast about a “piece of sh*t” man who had been reluctant to move seats for her and her family on a plane.