A mother has shared her experience on a flight after she was told she shouldn’t have her young child in first class – and it sparked a debate online.
The woman posted to Reddit to ask the forum’s opinion after the experience on 26 November.
She explained that she had “decided to splurge on first class tickets for the trip” as she, her husband and young daughter were flying across the US for Thanksgiving.
“My toddler has always been a good flyer and has flown a lot throughout her short life,” the woman added, noting that her daughter stayed in her seat and played quietly during the flight.
But once the family had boarded and taken their seats, they noticed a fellow passenger was “glaring” at them from his seat.
Shortly after, a member of cabin crew approached the family and asked to see their boarding passes. Two minutes later, another member of staff asked them the same thing.
While her child and husband were asleep, the man who had glared previously approached her. She wrote: “It was the guy that glared at us as he boarded and before I could even get a word out he told me that children weren’t allowed in first class and that we needed to move to our ‘real’ seats.”
After a flight attendant told the man the family were in their correct seats and to not bother them again, he allegedly called the mother a “fat c***”, and said that “he pays too much money for first class to be surrounded by children”.
The woman explained that as her child “didn’t misbehave or even cry”, she believed she was in the right, but family later told her at Thanksgiving that she shouldn’t have booked her young child into first class.
Comments were split, with many showing support for the woman. One said: “Even if your child did cry, it wouldn’t have mattered because you paid and are entitled to the seats you paid for.”
Another wrote: “I personally would hateeee if I paid first class to have a disruptive kid there but that would be my own internal problem to deal with.”