Flight attendant complains about passengers switching seats on plane: ‘This isn’t Southwest’

A flight attendant has opened up about one grievance she has with her job: passengers who want to switch seats before the plane has finished boarding.

Destanie recently took to TikTok to share a story about a recent flight that she was on and what happened. It started off with the flight attendant explaining that the flight was “completely full” but because so many passengers had short connection times there was a window of time when only half the amount of people were on board.

“So, we are waiting on the tight connections before we shut the aircraft door,” Destanie said at the start of her video. She added that her flight had roughly “15 minutes left of boarding”.

She went on to explain that a mother-daughter duo had “grabbed her” to ask if the flight would be full and if they could sit in the currently empty row across from their assigned seats. Despite telling them not to move because the flight was supposed to be full, they ended up switching seats.

“I walk away, and then she tells her daughter to move [to the empty row],” Destanie said. She walked back over to them to explain that they had to sit in their assigned seats and could only move if any passengers missed their connection.

She added that these were not the only two people thinking it was acceptable to switch seats and many people on the flight were “getting comfortable in seats that weren’t theirs”.

This led to Destanie asking one of the other flight attendants to make an announcement on the intercom that people should be sitting in their assigned seats.

“I’m like, guys, please go sit in your own seats until boarding is finished,” Destanie said. “This isn’t Southwest. You can’t just sit wherever you want.”

She ended her video with a rhetorical question to viewers: “Why do people make this job so hard?”

After posting, her video went on to receive over 300,000 views with many people turning to the comments questioning why no one listens to flight attendants or even thinks to move seats.

“It’s wild to not sit in your seat when you board. Like, check the seating chart while you’re waiting to board if you want to know if the seats will be free,” one comment read.

Another agreed, writing, “They made that announcement on my flight the other day, and all I could think was, WHO IS JUST SITTING WHEREVER THEY WANT?!”

“That’s crazy I get nervous if I’m sitting in my own seat cuz I’m worried I’m doing something wrong anyway,” a third commenter pointed out.

Some fellow flight attendants also chimed in using the comments with their own methods and phrases they say when something similar is happening on a flight they’re working.

“‘Just let me know if this is you refusing crew instructions’ works like a charm,” one flight attendant wrote in the comments.

“Fellow FA. I always say ‘sit in the seat on your boarding pass, if you don’t like that seat we can always see what other airlines have available’ gets em right together,” another flight attendant suggested.