A TikTok user and airline passenger has initiated an online discussion after she shared her choice to keep her seat instead of giving it up to a mother who was traveling with her son.
Visualize this scenario: a woman is comfortably seated, ready for the journey ahead, when a mother, appearing flustered, approaches with her child.
The mother and son, for some reason, are not seated together, prompting the mother to request a seat swap from the woman.
While it might seem like the mother could have made arrangements beforehand to sit with her child, the request doesn’t seem entirely unreasonable, does it?
But, what if the son wasn’t a toddler at all?
In her TikTok post, Surya Garg, the passenger, sought the opinions of viewers while explaining that she generally wouldn’t mind giving up her seat for a family with young children.
“I remember people giving up their seats for me and my brother when I was younger so we could be next to our parents, I get it,” she explained.
However, Surya added: “Tonight, I not only got asked to give up my window seat, so that I could sit in a middle seat, but the quote-unquote family that asked me to do this was a mother and her son – her son had to be a minimum of like 16 or 17 years old.
“This mans was 6’4″, talking on the phone to his girlfriend the entire time we were boarding.”
After already settling into her seat, Surya decided to politely refuse the mother’s request, explaining that she had paid extra for the seat.
This response apparently upset the mom, as Surya continued: “This woman makes the nastiest face at me I’ve ever experienced, sits down next to me in the middle seat [and] her son goes back to the middle seat he was assigned to.”
The TikTok creator claimed that the mother spent the duration of the flight ‘muttering profanities’ at her.
“Was I in the wrong here?” Surya questioned.
Numerous viewers quickly expressed their opinions, with many siding with Surya. One commenter noted, “You are not wrong! And I’m a mom but of littles. We always plan and pay the extra to sit together however…”
https://www.tiktok.com/@username/video/7189822509175459118
“People should just buy their seats! Not giving up my window — that I paid for — for a middle seat!,” another commented.
Conversely, some viewers supported the mother in the situation, with one saying they would give up their seat ‘100% of the time’.
“As a parent we only have a solid 18 years before they go out on there [sic] own […],” they added.
Another viewer highlighted potential unseen circumstances, suggesting: “I understand, sometimes though people have non-visible disabilities like my adult son, so in that case that would have been really helpful.”
Surya’s TikTok video has garnered over 1.5 million views to date.