A traveller's angry rant about having to move seats on a plane to make a mother and baby more comfortable during a long-haul flight has generated fierce debate online.
In their tirade, the passenger questioned multiple times why a woman would travel with a baby at all and refused to accept that their need for the bassinet and easy access to the toilet outweighed their desire for more legroom.
The person, whose Reddit username is Foxieon, claimed they and their partner paid extra money in advance to reserve bulkhead seats for the flight.
"Then three days before our trip we get an email that says your seats have been changed to a few rows back... mmm what? We got downgraded but we paid extra for those seats? So naturally we were both upset and instantly called the airline support, which took two hours of waiting," they said.
"We booked these tickets MONTHS ago and they wanted to just give them to a mom and a crying baby that's gonna be on my plane now?
"It's not like a short trip - why would this mom bring her baby anyway?"
In a series of comments, the passenger revealed the flight was with Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) - a carrier they said they won't be travelling with again.
Although they claimed it was a 10-hour flight to New York, SAS flies to the Big Apple direct from Oslo, Copenhagen or Stockholm, each of which generally has a flight time of between eight and nine hours.
After complaining over the phone about their seat change, the passenger said they and their partner were upgraded to other seats that supposedly offered the same legroom.
"After hearing like 'yeah so sorry but the mom needs easy access to the bathrooms and she needs to put her baby bed in front' and all that… I don't know, I just got so pissed," they continued.
"Why is a mother travelling with such a young child? Why did they act like I was the crazy one for not wanting to give up our seats we paid for to a 'helpless mother' who needs it?"
Commenters were largely supportive of the Foxieon's point of view on the 'childfree' subreddit, but some pointed out that it's standard practice for airlines to shift passengers when babies are involved, for reasons such as access to the bassinets.
"We should all write to [the airline] reminding [them] that the child-free usually have more money to spend on travelling, and we will not be conducting our business with them after this bullshit treatment," said one.
"So you basically had to spend 2+ hours of your life arguing with someone to get what you paid for - that sucks, honestly. You should tweet about the airline and tag their official twitter handle," said another.
A third fumed: "I detest that we don't have kids so we don't have to accommodate our lives to fit a child's needs yet WE STILL HAVE TO!"
Another commenter reasoned: "I get completely why they would need the special seats, same as wheelchair users on a bus."
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*This article has been updated to correct the gender of the passenger involved in this incident.
