Couple Flying Southwest Called Out For Blocking An Aisle Seat While Searching For The ‘Perfect’ Passenger
Shady or genius?
illpaxphotomatic / Shutterstock Southwest flights can be a whole other level of chaos for frequent flyers. With no assigned seats on the flight, passengers have been known to do whatever it takes to try to avoid the dreaded middle seat.
One couple flying Southwest decided to handpick the perfect passenger to offer ‘their aisle seat’ up to.
In an Instagram video from 2022 that has since been deleted, a man showed his wife sitting two seats across from him on a Southwest flight. Captioning the video “Southwest Airlines etiquette,” the text on the video explained that he and his wife "took the aisle and the window until we found the right person,” with an attached laughing emoji.
If you’ve ever been on a Southwest flight, you know the terror of being some of the last people to board the plane, searching for an open spot. Walking down the aisle, you’re either met with mothers calming their newborn’s cries or couples like this that take one look up at you and then try not to make extended eye contact afterward.
The woman shown in the video seems to be doing just that, only making eye contact with passengers just long enough to see if they’d be the ‘perfect’ fit for the random seat next to them.
As Southwest passengers stroll past their row, the woman continues to eye down each one.
When a younger man with headphones approaches the aisle, she taps him on the shoulder. Looking excitedly over at her husband, she gestures to him — hoping he’d be the perfect seat partner.
“I don’t know,” the husband jokes, “It’s up to you.”
Seemingly satisfied with her choice, she reached up to tap the man on his shoulder.
“Do you want to sit here,” she said gesturing to the seat she had blocked off between her and her husband.
Surprised by being offered a spot in an early row on the plane, the man quickly responded with, “Oh, sure!”
“For how late I was, I thought I’d be scrunched in the middle somewhere,” the man jokes as he settles into his new ‘assigned’ aisle spot.
“She was just looking for somebody ‘cool’ to scoot over,” the husband jokingly leaned over to say.
Internet users seem divided over the couples’ discriminatory tactic for a more comfortable ride on the Southwest flight.
Many commenters seem angry — but, clearly over very different reasons. Some comments agonize over their inability to think of this ‘genius’ plan earlier, promising they’ll use it on their next flight. Others seem that it might be a little bit shady to handpick who gets to sit next to you — and more importantly, who doesn’t.
One comment on the Instagram video reads, “How would they feel if someone did that to them?” Would they fit the arbitrary ‘criteria’ that they were so desperately looking for on the Southwest flight?
Other comments joke that after recent Southwest scandals, they should be grateful that they are even on a flight at all — “Plot twist,” one commenter says, “the flight got canceled anyway.”
Southwest does not have a written policy prohibiting saving seats.
Despite the outrage Southwest's open seating sometimes causes, the airline doesn't currently have an official policy that prohibits people from saving seats. In fact, Southwest even revealed "discouraged" tricks for saving seats in a TikTok video that some might say actually encourages doing so.
"Don't think we didn't notice y'all out there trying," the company wrote in the video's caption.
Zayda Slabbekoorn is a news and entertainment writer at YourTango focusing on pop culture analysis and human interest stories.