A flight attendant has revealed the way she punishes passengers who refuse to swap seats with families with young children.
Mitra Amirzadeh, a flight attendant based out of Florida, said people requesting to swap seats happens on eight of her ten monthly flights.
Though she doesn’t often intervene, she will try to mediate when a child is sitting alone due to random seat allocation.
She told the Wall Street Journal that when people aren’t willing to move, she tells them they will be babysitting the unaccompanied child.
“I have said before, ‘OK, so you’re going to watch the toddler? You’ll want their snacks and their coloring books then, because they’re going to need that.’”
Amirzadeh said there is a growing trend of requests coming from couples who have sat separately due to additional fees for seat selection.
The flight attendant believes passengers who expect a specific seat should pay in advance for it.
She said: “The next time you feel yourself getting angry or getting frustrated that you’re not getting the seat you want, you need to remind yourself you didn’t pay to pick your seat. Otherwise, you’d be in it.”
Another former flight attendant has even taken to TikTok (@jeenie.weenie) to offer insights into the likelihood of successfully swapping seats.
She said that if you are a couple who wants to change seats with a solo passenger in the same area, it’s almost 100 percent they will swap with you, saying she’s never had someone say no.
However, if the seat change involves someone moving to the back of the plane or near a bathroom or a baby, that decreases your chances drastically to 30 percent.
People are also unwilling to switch if they are asked to give up their window or aisle seat for a middle seat.
Many seat-switching dramas have gone viral on social media in recent years – with videos of incidents garnering millions of views and thousands of comments with various opposing opinions.
