“This plane is very full,” he added brusquely, as if double-booking the seat was somehow my fault, and my presence in my own seat was somehow a personal attack on the sanctity of this couple’s relationship. Two lovers forced to sit two rows apart for seven hours? If this gate agent couldn’t get me to move, the patriarchy itself might just implode.
We had reached a stalemate, each of us staring with wide, unblinking eyes waiting for the other person to acquiesce. And then, dear reader… I caved.
Maybe I’m too nice, maybe I should have stood my ground—but the pressure of being put on trial in front of an entire cabin of people and publicly singled out as The Solo Traveler Who Of Course Will Want To Accommodate The Couple was simply too awkward to overcome.
To be clear, and if this was a medical emergency or a child that needed to be seated with their parent, I would have moved to a seat of equal or greater value—I’m an understanding person. But that, unfortunately, is not what happened here. Alas, for over seven hours, I seethed with quiet rage as my knees knocked the seat in front of me and my legs cramped. I wasn’t offered so much as an extra glass of wine for my ordeal.
Naturally, to process this traumatic experience, I took to social media to share my story. Within hours, I discovered a number of friends who had recently experienced similar transgressions on various airlines.
Tom Dietz, a PR executive from Manhattan, has been bumped from his business class seat twice this year on Delta flights from San Francisco to New York in order to accommodate a couple. Each time, the airline offered to fly him in economy, or to offer him a business class seat on the next day’s flight. Dietz stressed that many solo travelers are traveling for business reasons, and flights, and specific seats on those flights, are often carefully scheduled and selected for maximum efficiency. Bumping a solo traveler to an inferior seat or, worse, inferior flight can have serious consequences.
“It’s upsetting because I have a team of people I manage in New York, and I don’t want them to think that I’m staying behind for a day of sightseeing,” said Dietz. “I have too many miles with Delta at this point to start over, so I’m held hostage with them for the rest of my life. These experiences definitely change your perception of an airline.”
