I made a little girl cry on a flight and have no regrets

When a woman found out that the window seat she booked on a long-haul flight was taken by a child, you can imagine that she was conflicted…

Should she a) do nothing, it’s a child after all or b) claim what is rightfully hers?

Taking to a popular internet forum, the jet setter revealed that she initially took option a) and sucked it up. 

So how did the little girl end up in tears? 

“My dad told me to stand my ground”

User @u/Sm782_  came to the forum to post the question: ‘AITA [am I the a–hole] for taking my correct seat?’

The 22-year-old wrote, “I am travelling internationally today. It’s an eight to nine-hour flight and I’m travelling alone.”

The woman explained that it was difficult for her to leave her family and she’d been emotional about it all day, crying on and off.

She continued, “I had a window seat booked for my flight and I was looking forward to it. When I got there, a child was sitting in my seat and her dad was in the middle seat. I looked at the dad and pointed at the window seat saying that I think it was my seat, expecting him to move his daughter.”

But much to her surprise, the dad did nothing. Instead, he just pointed to the aisle seat that was free, gesturing that she should take it instead.

“He looked at me and said ‘she’s a child‘,” the woman added. 

Not wanting to make a scene, the woman took the aisle seat but messaged her family to tell them what was happening. Her dad then called her and said that she needed to ask for her seat back “because he paid for it and it wasn’t a free seat.”

So after this pep talk, she built up the confidence to tell the girl’s father to ask his daughter to move, which he did. The little girl didn’t take it well.

“She started crying and I felt terrible, but my dad told me to hold my ground,” the woman said.

The girl moved into the middle seat, but the issue didn’t stop there.

The woman had to cop a few snide remarks from the father throughout the flight, who was annoyed she made his daughter move.

“Never feel bad about this”

Commenters on the post quickly came to the woman’s defence, supporting her decision and reassuring her that she was entitled to ask for her seat back.

“You bought a seat to be able to use it, and the father in this situation knew that the seat he put his child in wasn’t theirs to use,” one said.

Another asked, “What is this epidemic of people assuming they can take another person’s assigned seat? The father can keep his snide remarks to himself.”

“It’s your seat. It’s paid for. Never feel bad about this,” a third replied.

This person gave the child’s dad a reality check: “If the father wanted their child to have a window seat, they should have selected one. People choose their seats of preference for all sorts of different reasons, and they shouldn’t have to deal with someone just assuming that they can sit there.”

And this member flipped the scenario on its head: “Do you think for a second that kid’s parent would let you sit there if the roles were reversed? Absolutely not.”

“They need to learn not everything will go their way sometimes. Your dad paid for that seat so sit where you are meant to on the plane and the dad of the kid can stop bullying you now,” a different user commented.

And this seasoned traveller gave the poster some advice: “You sound like you don’t have much travelling experience yet. There will be so much manipulativeness and emotional blackmail trying to game you out of a better seat that you’ve paid a premium for. Get used to it and learn to politely hold your ground.”