Man flying with a disabled brother came across a 'seat squatter' — he had a polite but firm response that worked

A 72-year-old man who was traveling with his disabled brother, 80, had the misfortune of coming across a seat squatter who refused to accept that he was in their seat. Fortunately, the man knew how to deal with the situation without causing a ruckus, even though the situation was new to him. The person, u/anclar52, shared the entire incident on Reddit and many people on the internet could relate to him.

"I’ve been flying for decades, but this one was new to me," the man wrote. He was with his 80-year-old brother, who needed a wheelchair and some looking after during a flight. So, the man had made sure that, along with the wheelchair, the two of them had aisle seats right across from each other. The flight was fully booked. "Boarded the flight and found a man in my aisle seat. He tried to claim that seat A-x was the aisle seat and so mine was the window." He had been flying on American Airlines for decades and knew that on a plane with 3X3 seating, C and D were aisle seats and A and F were window seats. "I attempted to explain this, nicely, to him. He insisted that I was wrong and he was right."

The man decided not to argue with him anymore after that and asked a flight attendant to explain the seating letter system to him. "She did and he then tried to argue with her that the airline had booked him with the wrong seat," the person recounted. "He finally took his window seat, grumbling about it and so I could take my assigned aisle seat." The man expressed that he would give that person an "A for originality." He added, "The only way to deal with these entitled folks is to be polite, but firm and involve the flight attendant if you can’t make any headway." People shared their thoughts and experiences in the comments section of the thread.

u/ElMoicano wrote, "I had an old lady try to pull that one on me and after I explained it, she pretended she didn't speak English. I then explained it in Spanish and she huffed at me and moved. She had no trouble speaking English to the flight attendants when she wanted something from them." u/Vast_Self1149 commented, "I had a woman try to make me take her aisle seat so she could have my window seat with the same argument. When I tried to explain the letter seating, she refused to believe me. Luckily, she gave up and pouted her way through the flight, but I was both surprised and amused. The thing is, I would have happily switched with her if she had asked, but you can’t just demand someone’s seat."

u/Audiooldtimer remarked, "I guess some people make sport of this. A couple of years ago, I booked an aisle seat. A gentleman sits down in the middle next to me. His wife shows up and asks me to move to the window seat so she can sit next to her husband. I told her that if she wants to sit next to him, she could sit in the window seat that she was assigned. She gave me a huff and a nasty look and took her seat."