'AITA for not letting someone save a seat on a Southwest flight? That's not how it works.'
"AITA for not allowing someone to save a first row seat on a South West flight?"
Pretty much what the title says. I (29M) fly alone a lot and pay for priority seating on Southwest, which is first come first serve seating. I go to board and see a seat in the front row with a jacket on it. I go to put my stuff in the overhead bin and point at the seat when a man tells me that he is saving the seat I wanted to sit in.
I tell him that’s not how this works, and if he wants to ensure him someone else sit together than he should pick a seat further back in the plane. This goes back and forth until he finally moves his jacket and allows me to sit.
I guess I COULD have just picked another seat, but I’m 6'3" and honestly needed the leg room more than him. Am I an ahole?
Here's what top commenters had to say about this one:
icenoid said:
NTA my last southwest flight, they made a pre-boarding announcement about this behavior. They said that if members of your party are in different groups and want to sit together, they need to all board with the later group and that no saving of seats is allowed.
tinypill said:
NTA. If they want priority seat picks, they all need to pay for priority boarding too. The FAs won’t let this shit fly (ha) if you tell them.
mikeesq22 said:
Nope. SW has on open seating policy on a FIRST COME FIRST SERVED basis. So if you did early check in or bought one of the first 15 places in A group you should have every right to pick the best available seat for you. It would be complete BS for someone to save a seat for someone who didn't pay for the upgrade.
You either pay for the privilege of ensuring you and your travel companion have preferred seats or you let fate decide there is no having your cake and eating it too (honestly to save something like $20-40).
Survive1014 said:
NTA. If he wanted to sit with someone else they should of boarded together.
somerandomguyanon said:
NTA. It’s pretty common knowledge that saving an undesirable seat is OK, but trying to save a desirable seat is a d move. There are people that actually paid extra money to get better boarding. But if this person had tried to save a middle seat, two rows back, it wouldn’t have been a big deal at all.
PolarBearLaFlare said:
NTA. I only fly southwest and the attendants literally tell everyone that you cannot save seats.