An 18-year-old teenager claimed that he was removed from an aircraft after raising concerns about the obese passenger sitting beside him.
The teenager complained about the obese guy sitting next to him on Reddit’s AITA platform, saying that he considered complaining to the flight attendant about how much of his seat he was using.
“I (18m) was traveling to my home country. On my second connecting flight, which is also by far my longest one being over 12 hours long, I had the delightful sight of an obese man that was taking up a good chunk of my seat.”
“I am not a small guy myself. I have quite broad shoulders and am around 190 cm, so a full seat would already have been uncomfortable. I told the flight attendant about this issue and she told me that the seat was paid for by this obese person and the flight was full.”
OP added, “I asked the flight attendant how it’s possible that my seat still rendered as available if it was being used for someone’s literal rolls, as this wasn’t an American airline (non-american airlines don’t get overbooked).”
“I then added on how this airline wasn’t absolutely terrible just a few years ago (it wasn’t just this incident they just went downhill in quality).”
After hearing his frank criticism of the carrier, the flight attendant expelled OP from the aircraft.
“These comments prompted the flight attendant to call me rude and just made her double down on me getting kicked off the plane, though she reassured me I’d be compensated for this trouble as I told her I wasn’t traveling for vacation,” he said.
“The fat man took his opportunity to call me a fatphobic shit. Some other people around gave me the stink eye. I know they think I’m a bad person for this, but on the other hand I’m having to pay for the lack of discipline of another person as well as this shitty airline’s booking system. Hell I’d rather they called me the day before.”
The teenager was removed from the flight
The teenager claimed to have received a letter stating that his appeal had been successful and that the teenager was released following a brief travel restriction of less than an hour the following day.
“The airline staff sent a letter of complaint that I got appealed and the consequences in the complaint (being a temporary ban) were removed less than an hour later. In the letter of complaint, it said I was being rude to other passengers and the staff.”
“Since it got appealed so quick, and I got to travel the next day anyway, I’m really not sure if I’m TA.”
“AITA for my comments that have offended both the fat man and the airline staff?” he asked.
Over 2.5K comments were left on the teenager’s post after it became popular on Reddit.
The majority of commenters referred to the teenager OP as a TA and criticized his actions.
“YTA. Exactly. He would have likely gotten a very different response had he quietly approached a flight attendant to explain the situation and politely ask for a resolution. I’ve been in a situation where someone was taking up part of my seat as well, and it’s not a fun way to fly, BUT I handled it differently and received a refund on my flight, so Clearly, he’s TA,” one person said.
“Hard YTA. OP behaved like a massive jerk. The fact that the poor man knew you were complaining about him tells me you were loud and rude. You are also fat phobic how do you know there wasn’t a medical issue causing him to be larger?” a second commented.
“Yes YTA. Not for being uncomfortable and wanting your seat changed, but for how you handled the whole situation. You did not need to insult the man right next to you and the airline just to get your point across. All of that makes you TA,” a third added.
“YTA. You didn’t even have the decency to complain to the flight attendant privately, and wrongfully took out your frustration out on them,” said another.
Share your thoughts about this incident with us.
