Plus-size travel blogger shares how she secures two seats on ‘almost every’ flight

A plus-size travel influencer has gone viral after sharing her travel hack for securing two seats on a flight without paying extra.

Kirsty Leanne is a UK-based content creator with more than 115K followers on TikTok, who often shares tips and tricks for plus-size friendly travel. Leanne has since started her own travel service for plus-size women, called Plus Size Travel Too. In a video with 2.6m views on TikTok, she shared how she gets an empty seat next to her on “almost every flight” she takes.

“One of the most daunting things about flying as a plus-size person is how much space you’re going to have,” she began the video, which included clips of Leanne jet-setting to several travel destinations. “And with the airlines making it so difficult to book a second seat, this tip has definitely saved me so many hours of uncomfortable flights.”

Leanne then shared with her followers the one question they should ask the flight attendant when boarding a plane. “Do you know if there’s any seats where there’s two seats next to each other free?” she filmed herself asking the attendant.

“Maybe after boarding I can look,” the female flight attendant replied.

Leanne noted that her plus-size travel hack may not “work every time,” such as when the flight is fully booked, but it’s “always worth asking.”

“I know how hard it can be to advocate for yourself, but remember that you deserve to be comfortable too,” she said.

In a follow-up TikTok, Leanne clarified that it can be “difficult” to book a second seat on a plane because the “airlines don’t make it easy” to find an empty seat, as well as the pricey cost for a second ticket.

“The best thing to do is Google the airline and extra seat and see if there’s a policy that comes up,” she advised.

In the caption of her TikTok video, Leanne told her followers that “the sooner [they] board” the plane and ask for an extra seat, the better.

“It’s always better to ask so that FAs [flight attendants] are aware you want more space. They also may tell you to wait until after takeoff to move and will save the space for you,” she wrote.

“I also ask at check-in as often, they can change your ticket to be in an empty row,” Leanne added. “A lot of the time, however, I’m told it’s a full flight even if it’s not. If you get this answer, don’t be…