A woman who stood her ground and declined to switch seats with a mother on an airplane, thereby preventing the mother from sitting next to her children, has garnered praise online for her unwavering stance.
Tammy Nelson, the CEO of CONQUERing, a global jewelry brand, took to TikTok to share an incident that occurred during her Delta Airlines flight from Cincinnati, Ohio to San Jose, California. Another woman approached her, requesting a seat switch so that she could sit next to her two children.
Ms. Nelson deduced that the woman was already occupying her designated window seat.
“I double-checked my boarding pass thinking I may have had the wrong row,” Ms Nelson told Newsweek.
“When I confirmed I was looking at the correct seat, I thought she must have just mistakenly sat in the wrong seat. So I said, ‘I’m sorry but it seems you’re in my seat’, thinking she would realise it and move.”
But the woman did not. “Oh – you want to sit here?” she reportedly said. “I was pretty surprised at the question but replied simply saying, ‘Yes, that’s the seat I selected’,” Ms Nelson said.
The woman informed Ms. Nelson that her two kids were sitting in the seats next to her window seat. “Oh well I just thought we could switch since these are my kids,” she told Ms Nelson.
Ms. Nelson later revealed to her TikTok followers the true reason behind her decision to decline the seat swap with the mother, who had offered her a middle seat instead.
“I get motion sickness during takeoff and landing if I can’t see out the window. I also don’t get a lot of sleep. I often try to get a little sleep on planes which is easiest with a window seat,” Ms Nelson said.
“On that particular day, I only had 90 minutes of sleep the night before,” she said. “And I was headed into a high-pressure work week where I would be presenting to 500 people and really needed to be at my very best so getting a little sleep on that flight was extra-important.”
With over 1.6 million views and counting, Ms. Nelson's TikTok video has gained significant traction and attention.
In the video, Ms. Nelson explained that the mother, who was initially frustrated, eventually returned to her original middle seat.
TikTok users have rallied behind Ms. Nelson, expressing their support for her decision and stance.
“People should book seats together if they want to sit together,” one user wrote.
“The amount of families who aren’t paying to select their seats together is mindblowing! You were 100 per cent right to not give up your seat,” said another comment.
“Nope. If it’s not an upgrade it’s a sacrifice,” said another.
“People choose aisle or window for specific reasons (eg sleeping or being close to the toilet). No obligation to switch,” added another user.
Ms Nelson said “people are fed up with people feeling entitled” when it comes to things like this.
“Clearly the woman just expected that I would make a change to meet her needs, not considering what she had done (or not done) that put her in that situation,” she said.
“She just expected me to flex my plans to suit her needs. There seems to be a growing trend of this entitlement in society and I think people are just sick of it.”