A video of a woman passenger refusing to give up her seat on a flight to her mother who wanted to sit with her children is going viral on the internet. The incident captured in a Tik Tok video by Tammy Nelson, CEO of jewelery company CONQUERing, has started an online discussion. Nelson explains in the video that another passenger asked him to move out of his seat so he could sit with two children on a Delta flight from Ohio to California. The incident generated both support and criticism, with some questioning the woman’s lack of empathy.
“I got on the plane and there was a woman sitting in my seat, and when I mentioned it to her, she said, ‘Oh, you want to sit here because these are my kids, so I thought we could move,'” LadBible quotes Nelson.
“I said, ‘As long as it’s a window seat, I’m happy to move.’ Pointing to the row behind us, she says, ‘Mine’s right over there.’ (It’s a middle seat),” Nelson wrote in her post.
According to Nelson’s statement Newsweek, She didn’t want to move from the window seat because she felt motion sickness during take off and landing when she couldn’t see out of the window. “I’m not very sleepy either. I often try to get some sleep on airplanes, which is easier with the window seat,” she told the publication.
“On that particular day, I only got 90 minutes of sleep the night before. I went into a high-stress week where I was presenting to 500 people and really had to be at my best, so I needed to get some sleep. That flight was very important,” Nelson adds.
The mother was “super annoyed” as she moved back to her own seat.
The video has garnered over 1.6 million views on Tik Tok. Some users praised Nelson’s stance and said people should book seats together if they want to sit together.