An "exhausted" plane passenger was left furious after a mum interrupted his plans to enjoy a nap on the flight by forcing him to move seats. The man was travelling home after a month of backpacking with his pal when they discovered an empty seat at the end of their row, the Mirror reports.
The men were keen to get some sleep after an early start to catch their connecting flight and devised a plan to make the middle seat the spare and take turns lying down and stretching out a bit further to sleep. Unfortunately for them, a mother with a baby sitting a few rows in front had her own idea for the seat which they soon discovered after she asked them to move.
She had spotted the gap and asked the pals to move so she could have a "full seat for her baby" which the "visibly" disappointed male passenger agreed to but asked if she could wait a few hours while he had a rest. Initially, the mum had agreed to this but a short while later, she "charged" over and demanded they moved, the man explained in a Reddit post.
Taking to the online forum to explain the situation, he wrote: "We'd been travelling for a long time and were really wrung out. However, after '45 minutes or less', the impatient parent had changed her mind after struggling to enjoy her onboard snack. The woman couldn't really manage her baby, and asked a flight attendant to hold it so that she could eat".
She then stormed over and ordered them to move from the seat. The male passenger agreed but made it clear he was far from impressed. He also complained about the baby's noisy toys and the youngster's crying for the duration of the flight.
He said: "The baby was very loud, always whining and crying but that's nothing you can blame a baby for. She then gave the baby a rattle toy which was constantly being shaken and really loud, on top of the whining and crying.
"The mum also shook the rattle toy for the baby to try to get it to quiet down (didn't work) making additional noise. This wasn't once or twice but throughout most of the flight incl. during lights+windows off/sleeping time".
However, when he later complained about the mum to his pal, his fellow passenger had little sympathy for his complaint and told him he was behaving like an "a*****e" for acting so irritated by this woman, when she was struggling with the baby.
Turning to Reddit to seek some advice on the situation, he wrote: "I'd like to get some outside opinions on whether we should just have offered the seat and whether I'm an '[a****e]' for being grumpy about the whole thing".
His spot stirred up some controversy online as commenters struggled to come to a consensus. One person replied: "Neither one of you were entitled to the seat you didn't pay for. Seems like you both shared it. I don't see the problem."
Somebody else remarked: "Nobody was entitled to the seat. The difference between OP and the mother was that OP was willing to compromise by sharing the time the seat was used. The mother demanded use of the seat for most of the flight."
Another person wrote: "If she wanted a seat for her baby she could have bought one. And it's ok to be annoyed by a loud baby and vent to your friend about it later. Accosting the mother about the noise would have been rude, but being irritable about it is normal."
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