Passenger Refuses To Give Up Business Class Seat And The Internet Rises To His Defense

Some stories that make their way onto the internet are so absurd as to seem unreal. Theater of a kind, in some cases. It’s difficult to imagine that there are actually people out there who act the way that some people call out, but nevertheless, they are out there, and they are loud.

Entitled People All Over the Internet

Stories of entitled people range far and wide on the internet, especially with the availability of storytelling on social media. Tiktok is particularly notorious for airing out dirty laundry, with individuals able to share stories in snippets that can easily go viral and rocket them to internet fame.

One example is the woman who documented her neighbor’s legal and civil attempts to prevent her from digging out a river on her own property. This neighbor had installed a fence in a public waterway in order to prevent the poster’s sons from fishing in the public river, and the poster decided to do something about it, much to her neighbor’s ire.

Especially on Reddit

Reddit is a forum that is particularly full of these types of stories. There are dozens of subreddits – specific message boards regarding different topics – where people can share their stories and comment on other’s, and it has fostered a sense of community among people from all different walks of life.

Some forums, such as the “Am I the A?” subreddit, gather people from all walks of life to check their fellow internet poster’s attitudes. More often than not, the individuals who post in that thread are in the right, but that doesn’t prevent the endless entertainment from coming.

A Subreddit For Entitled People

The internet story of the week this time, though, comes from a subReddit called “Entitled People.” Like the name suggests, it welcomes stories of interactions with strangers, who feel just a little too entitled to something that you have and are not shy about their demands to have it.

Stories on the “Entitled People” subreddit range from people who don’t understand why they need to make appointments before they come to an office, to stories of “Karen’s” who are willing to make a fuss with anyone who will listen, simply in order to get what they think that they want.

A Tale from an Airplane

This story in particular, though, is a bit of a doozy. It comes from an individual who begins his story explaining that several years ago, he had a ticket flying from Toronto to Vancouver on a 787, where they have lie-flat pods in business class.

The OP (original poster) explains that he had found himself in one of the middle pods in business class, but that it wasn’t a big deal. For those who are traveling alone who find themselves in a middle seat, there are privacy screens that can be drawn up in order to protect you from having to make conversation with fellow passengers, if you don’t want to.

A Woman Asked OP to Move

OP explained that sitting next to him in business class was a woman, who turned to him and asked if he would switch seats so that her husband could sit next to her. He agreed at first, thinking that her husband was sitting somewhere else in business class, and it therefore wouldn’t be that big a deal for the pair of them to switch.

It was quickly revealed, however, that the woman had been offered a free upgrade to business class from economy, and that was the seat that she was asking the OP to move to. Once he understood that he would be accepting a significant downgrade to grant the woman the favor that she was requesting of him, he declined her request.

The Woman Refused to Back Down

Most people would back off at that point, but for OP and the woman on the plane, it was just the beginning. She then tried to convince the OP that he should give up his business class seat for a middle seat in economy, and the entire time, OP posted that he thought the interaction had to be a prank of some kind.

Text “You can’t seriously expect me to swap a pod for a MIDDLE seat at the back of the bus. Are you kidding me?” OP wrote, detailing what he had said to the woman. She allegedly continued trying to convince OP to switch seats, but he refused to budge once he understood the entirety of the situation.

OP Tried to Compromise…But Not That Much

The OP allegedly offered to try and find someone else in business class who would be willing to trade seats with her husband. If he was able to find someone, he said that he would be willing to trade seats with her husband so that they could sit together, but that he was not going to willingly give up his business class seat simply so that the pair of them could sit together for the flight.

“I think you have two choices…sit apart, or sit together back there. I’m sure whoever is in 18C would love to sit up here. Take your old seat back and you can both sit together,” OP wrote, detailing the end of his conversation with the woman.

The Woman Left

The woman allegedly went back into economy class at that point, furious at not having gotten her way, and OP thought that that was the end of it. He expected to see a new passenger coming to business class, someone who had been the lucky recipient of an instant and free upgrade.

Instead, he was surprised to see the woman come back, alone and without her husband. Evidently, the individuals who had been sitting on either side of her old seat were particularly attached to their seating arrangements, and even for a free upgrade, they weren’t willing to accommodate the woman’s request.

The Woman and Her Husband Flew Separate

The OP revealed that later, he found out that the flight attendants of the plane evidently had to get involved with the woman. She was told to go sit in her seat and to stop making such a scene on the plane, and that swapping was not going to be allowed. The woman then came back to her seat and sat separate from her husband, clearly unhappy that she hadn’t gotten her way from the other passengers or the employees of the plane.

Given the way the OP described this woman, it’s unsurprising if she was given a dressing down from the flight attendants. The entitlement that the woman felt to anything and everything that everyone else on the plane had is clear in the way that he told the story, if everything that he said did actually happen.

Commenters Jumping on the Woman

Commenters on the thread immediately rose to the OP’s defense. Many of them were shocked by the entitlement from the other woman, pointing out that business class seats are significantly more expensive than economy class, and that it made perfect sense that OP wouldn’t want to give up his seat.

One commenter said, “I would have said no immediately no questions. Why the heck would I switch out the super expensive seat I paid for ANY other seat on the plane just so she and her companion can sit together instead, and her companion gets a free seat that I paid for?”

In Defense of OP

Another poster pointed out that the woman was not the only one in the wrong here, and that the airline should take some responsibility for the messy situation as well. “The airlines should take some accountability here too. Before they upgrade someone they should ask if they are traveling with anyone.”

The comment ended with a joke, stating, “And if they see the Karen haircut, ‘No upgrade for you!'” While this is an obvious dig at the cultural stereotype of the entitled, middle-aged woman who asks to speak to the manager, if the OP’s story is true, this woman fits the stereotype to a T.

Entitled Karens on the Internet

Stories like the woman on the plane are a dime a dozen on the internet, unfortunately, though they make us shake our heads every time. It’s incredible the amount of audacity that someone would need to feel in order to make such an outrageous ask, not once but multiple times.

The OP appeared entirely unbothered by the encounter, though. He finished up his story by stating that thirty minutes into the flight, he was reclined fully in his seat and slept soundly for the rest of the trip. Though it may have been an interesting beginning of the flight, it seems that the rest of the journey was just as it should have been: boring and uneventful.