Man praised for refusing to swap seats with pregnant woman on plane

A man has been praised for refusing to swap seats with a pregnant woman on his flight.

In a recent post shared to the popular “Am I The A**hole?” Reddit forum, one traveller, who goes by the username u/michaeldonelly, asked if he was in the wrong for not giving his seat on a plane to a pregnant woman. He went on to recall how travelling alone on a flight that was over five hours to see his family for the holidays. The Reddit user then described some of the planning he did when booking his flight.

“I specifically booked and paid extra for an aisle seat in the second-to-last row because I have medical issues that sometimes require quick access to the bathroom,” he explained.

However, according to the traveller, right before he started boarding the plane, a woman asked him to “give up [her] seat so she could sit closer to the bathroom”. He went on to describe that while he felt empathetic towards the pregnant woman, after claiming that she “did not seem distressed”,  he didn’t think it was “fair” for him to change his seat.

“While I felt for her situation, as someone with a medical condition, I did not feel it was fair to demand I move from the seat I planned for and paid for, especially since she apparently had not booked an aisle seat herself in advance,” he wrote.

The man went on to claim that “the flight attendants refused to help mediate” the situation, as the pregnant woman was still insisting that he “should have to move”. He continued to note that while there weren’t any other seats near the bathroom, he still expressed to her that he wasn’t going to move.

“There were also no other aisle or close seats available on the full flight that I or flight crew could facilitate swapping,” he wrote, before adding that his family told him that he “should have inconvenienced [himself] and given up [his] seat”.

“I disagree though,” he concluded, referring to his family’s recommendation. “I think [the pregnant woman] and the flight crew were unfairly targeting me instead of handling it through proper channels.”

The Reddit post has quickly gone viral, as it has more than 15,00 upvotes. In the comments, many Reddit users have praised the traveller for keeping his seat, since he’d made specific seat accommodations before the flight. They also shared how they’d react to the pregnant woman, if…