We often talk about families demanding seat swaps or premium rows without paying for them. But this case was different: a traveler paid extra for an exit row seat, only to spend four hours with children hovering in his space, blocking the window and leaning over him as if the emergency exit door was a lounge.
Paid For Extra Legroom, Got Kids Blocking The Exit Window For Four Hours
A passenger flying with his sister and niece recounted the ordeal on Facebook. They each paid €30 for extra legroom, hoping for a more comfortable ride. Instead, they found themselves constantly intruded upon by a father and his two children who became fixated on the emergency exit window. The kids stood in the row almost the entire flight, pointing, chatting, and leaning over into the space the family had paid extra to enjoy.
“We had to call the flight attendant three times to get them to move, but they just kept coming back after a few minutes,” the man wrote. By the third intervention, the flight attendant was visibly frustrated and warned the father this would be the last time she told them to sit down. The passenger concluded by noting, “Sometimes I wish Europe was as strict as the US with the no-fly lists.”
This looks like Lufthansa to me…?
My Take
This is a different type of entitlement, but no less frustrating. If you pay for a seat, especially an extra legroom seat, you have the right to use the space you paid for without being invaded by other passengers. It’s not a playground or a lounge. Parents need to exercise control over their kids, and crew should do a better job of enforcing boundaries when they’re repeatedly ignored.
I’ve flown enough to know that exit row windows are fascinating to children, including to mine. But fascination doesn’t justify disrupting another passenger’s experience. If the father wanted his kids to gawk out the window for four hours, he should have booked those seats himself instead of letting them commandeer space that belonged to someone else.
CONCLUSION
Paying extra for legroom should not mean paying extra to babysit other people’s children. This was not only inconsiderate but a safety issue…exit rows must remain clear (yeah, maybe that’s a stretch, but it is still rude). Airlines need to be stricter about preventing passengers from loitering in premium seats they did not pay for, even within economy class. Parents need to be stricter too. Flying is stressful, but spending four hours with kids leaning over you after you paid specifically to avoid such an experience adds a magnitude of stress that should never have happened in the first place.
image: Dull Men’s Fun Club / Facebook
Children can’t be seated at the emergency exit, so they wouldn’t be able to book theses seats if they wanted.
Children should be belted in their own seats. This is one of the lessons about boundaries parents should know and enforce. If they wish to come into a strangers space, at least they should be polite and ask first.
I agree with you matthew and would never let my kids behave like that. I will add that at least with AA it won’t let you (the adult) book yourself an exit row seat if you have any kids on your reservation. So i can’t put mom and 2 kids three rows back and sit in the exit row myself for example….
Completely agree with your take Matthew. Also, is the US strict with no-fly lists? Didn’t think so.
They’d be the first to sue if one of their darlings smashed their head into the ceiling during turbulence.
Nothing to see here folks, just Douchebag Dave Edwards or Sch*tt Hsuan or Dirtbag Derek (and He/She/They/Its) 2 children causing aggravation again, please don’t feed the trolls, please keep scrolling.
Not surprising how entitled people are. But for the flight attendant to not say anything is unacceptable.
One of those many stories where you ask yourself, “how could the perps think this is right?”