A woman has added fuel to the fire of the raging plane seat debate after she took to TikTok and revealed that she just refused to switch her first-class seat so a family could sit together throughout the flight.
Maresa Friedman shared about an awkward experience she had while traveling, explaining that she paid for a seat in first class and called it ‘planning ahead.’
Her refusal to leave her seat left the family furious and they kept throwing ‘death stares’ at her for the entire journey.
In her viral video, Meresa said that she wasn’t the villain for not giving up the seat she fully paid for.
“I am also a mom so it’s called planning ahead,” she said. “I’m sorry moms and families but as a fellow mom I’m not a villain for not giving up my seat.”
In a series of clips, the mother-of-two detailed her reasoning for declining the family’s request, saying she did not believe she should be inconvenienced just because the family hadn’t properly planned their travel.
“If you didn’t plan ahead, and yeah the airline bumps you or moves you or whatever, totally fair, so the suggestion I gave was basically like, ‘Oh if all of you want to sit in together, in a row, since first class is two seats and two seats, I’m sure you could ask the people behind you, I think they would be super pumped to sit [in first class] so that the three of you could be together.
’”
But when she made a suggestion, she started getting death stares from the parents.
“If you book with the airline, because this has happened to us as a family of four who travels together, they will group your reservation together. The only time that you might be separated is if you miss a flight or a connection,” she went on.
One person commented: “You’re NEVER a villain for not giving up a paid seat. Period. Folks need to one, plan ahead, and two, pay up if they want your seat.”
Another wrote: “I don’t give up my seat anywhere ever on a plane. I reserved it early enough to get what I wanted. Your loss if you didn’t.”
A third said: “Thank you! As a child free person I get shamed for not moving. I paid full price. I’m not moving.”
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