Every summer, it happens: a family who hasn’t had the nous to book seats together on a plane asks a single passenger to move, in order to accommodate them.
This week, it’s Irish model and mother-of-three Vogue Williams, who publicly berated a fellow passenger for not wishing to give up his aisle seat and move to the window so that she could sit with her family. She was flying to London from Gibraltar, for goodness sake. It’s a three-hour flight. Read a magazine. Order Duty Free. It’s not his fault that you’re so disorganized you can’t read a plane seat map.
I travel a lot. I have very specific seats I always choose (ask Virgin Atlantic; if I can’t get 8A, I’ll change planes). I like an aisle seat when traveling domestically because I need to use the rest room a lot. I like to be at the front because I don’t like crowds and invariably need to disembark quickly. I spend weeks, sometimes months, making sure I have my favorite seat.
But I’ve lost count of the times I’ve been singled out as a single woman on her own and asked to change my seat. I suspect it’s because people think we’re going to be the softest touch. Wrong.
Connect with us on our socials: