Plus-size woman defended after refusing to give up extra seat to toddler on flight

A plus-size woman has been defended after she refused to give up her extra seat to a toddler on a flight.

In a viral post shared to the popular Reddit forum “Am I the A**hole?”, a 34-year-old woman questioned whether she was in the wrong for refusing to give up the extra seat she had paid for to a stranger’s child.

“I am obese. I’m actively working toward losing weight and I’ve made progress but I’m still obese as I’m typing this,” she began the post, which was shared to Reddit on 19 December. She explained that she was travelling to see her brother and his husband for Christmas across the country, and booked herself an extra seat in her aisle so that she was more comfortable during the flight. “I know it sucks having to pay for an extra seat but it is what it is,” she wrote.

The woman explained that checking into her flight and boarding the plane had gone “smoothly” until another woman came to her row with her 18-month-old son. “She told me to squeeze into 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,” the Reddit user said.

“She makes a big fuss over it, which got the flight attendant’s attention,” she continued. The fellow passenger told the flight attendant that the woman was ‘stealing the seat’ from her son, to which the Reddit user showed her boarding pass to prove that she had indeed 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,” she said.

The airline employee eventually told the mother to sit in the seat with her son in her lap, but that didn’t stop her from criticising the Reddit user. “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,” she said.

Taking to Reddit, the plus-size woman wondered if she should’ve given her extra seat to the woman’s son, despite paying for it herself. However, Reddit users applauded her for sticking her ground and refusing to give up her seat.

“You paid for your seat. This woman was trying to steal a free seat for her kid,” one person commented under the viral post. “If it’s too hard to have him on her lap, buy a seat for him. It’s s*** that they even asked you to share or give up your seat.”

“She’s the a**hole for not buying a seat for her son and assuming someone else would give up a seat they paid for. Odds are she was hoping there’d be extra seats on the flight so she didn’t have to pay and used the lap thing as a loophole,” another person said. “Classic case of you snooze you lose.”

Others criticised the flight attendant for not defending the plus-size woman, writing: “The cabin crew should have stopped this straight away once they saw you had booked both seats, it should have been obvious why. They should not have asked you to squeeze into one seat.”

Meanwhile, one person left the Reddit user an encouraging message in the comment section. “You should always do what you can to be as healthy as you can, but being fat isn’t a character flaw or a moral failing,” they said. “We all have our own challenges in life, and you deserve to not be ashamed of your body and yourself even if you aren’t currently meeting your goals.

“If mom wants an extra seat for her kids, she should have purchased one. She’s not entitled to a seat you purchased, and you don’t need to feel bad for her bad behaviour.”

Southwest Airlines recently introduced its new “customer of size” policy, which allows plus-size passengers to use extra seats for free. Customers who “encroach upon any part of the neighbouring seat(s)” can buy the number of extra seats they need and receive a refund at check-in, the US airline stated. The policy is based on size, rather than weight; passengers qualify for a free ticket if any part of their body extends past their seat’s armrest.

“The purchase of additional seats serves as a notification of a special seating need and allows us to adequately plan for the number of occupied seats onboard,” the policy read. “It also helps us ensure we can accommodate all customers on the flight for which they purchased a ticket and avoid asking customers to relinquish their seats for unplanned accommodation.”

Travellers can purchase the extra seats ahead of time and approach a Southwest customer service agent at the airport to request a refund for the additional ticket, or they can enquire once at the airport.