Woman 'stole' a man's aisle seat and refused to budge — so he decided to get creative in his revenge

There is always at least one passenger in every public transport who can be branded as a troublemaker. Previously, we have come across stories of several entitled passengers on flights that make the journey hell for fellow travelers. u/compile_commit on Reddit shared a similar story that happened on a flight and how a seat stealer got what she deserved. The man wrote about an experience of his cousin who was flying from Ahmedabad to Kolkata with Indigo Airlines in India a couple of months back. The cousin has booked an exit row aisle and paid extra for it.

When the cousin boarded the flight, he found another woman sitting in his designated spot. The woman, who was referred to as "Karen," argued that she always booked an aisle seat when the cousin told her to move from his spot. She got dramatic when he insisted she check her ticket and seat number again. Feeling frustrated upon her refusal, the cousin approached a flight attendant who confirmed the seat was booked under his name. However, he decided to teach the Karen a lesson right after that.

"I spoke to the attendant. She confirmed it's my seat, but since you seem certain, she's offered me a complimentary upgrade to business class," the cousin told the woman occupying his seat, who seemed shocked at hearing about the upgrade. It was when he made a false offer to Karen and asked if she wanted to have his business class seat and switch the aisle seat with him. She promptly agreed. "Just go to the front, let the attendant know you're taking the business class upgrade meant for the passenger in 13C, and she'll get you all set," he instructed. As the Karen strutted away, the man took his rightful seat, but expectedly, the Karen stormed back him again.

Karen was visibly embarrassed when she asked the flight attendant for a business upgrade when the flight didn't even have a business class. The irritated woman confronted the cousin, who was then well-settled in his spot. A squabble ensued where he pretended he hadn't told her about the upgrade. The flight attendant also arrived at the scene and a fellow passenger backed him up, confirming that he wasn't lying and was indeed sitting in his own seat. As the flight attendant asked the woman to show her boarding pass, she made quite a show of trying to find it and continued to sputter nonsense and called the airline staff incompetent.

When the flight was getting delayed, the captain showed up to ask for the woman's boarding pass, otherwise she would get deboarded. "Ma'am, this says 22B. Your seat is nine rows back, and it's a middle seat. There's a stunned silence as Karen's face goes pale. She tries one last-ditch excuse by calling the situation unfair and that she is under a lot of stress," the Reddit post continued. But the captain told her to settle in her designated seat or get off the flight, to which she complied. The post concluded with the woman sitting on his seat after a lot of cursing and the cousin got his designated seat. However, several Reddit users thought it could be a made-up story.

However, the original poster of the story clarified that he used AI to increase readability since English is not his first language. u/Waylander08 confessed, "I was a seat stealer once. I got on to a mostly empty airplane. It was weird because it was a popular route. Like number 9 person gets on, walks up to me, looks at me, looks at his ticket, looks at the seat number above, and repeats. 'Hey man, you're in my seat.' It turns out we had the same seat!" u/Shihaby doubted, "There's no way the captain went to the back to check on a seating situation, simply fiction. When the engines are off and the door is open, it's the ground staff and cabin crew that are in charge of these issues." u/Drazilou added, "She just had to inform the entire plane of her entitlement, making sure everybody knew how obnoxious she was and taking her embarrassment from nose to tail."