'[I was] framed as some seat squatter': 19 Times the tables turned and the flight attendant was actually the Karen during a flight

Author image for Elna McHilderson
Elna McHilderson • Managing Editor
Dec 19, 2024 7:00 AM EST

Usually, when you go on Reddit and find travel horror stories, it's about some passenger being a total Karen. If you are unfamiliar with what that means: Just imagine you're waiting to get to your seat and you just see a passenger ahead of you holding everyone up because of something frivolous they feel entitled to, even though the most certainly are not. If you travel often, you most likely have encountered a Karen. What is it about traveling that really brings the Karens out? Maybe because it's exhausting and expensive? Whatever the reason, there are many stories about them on the internet. These stories, however,  are not talking about the passengers on a flight being Karens, they're talking about the employed flight attendants becoming the Karen. A real curve ball, if you ask us! Usually you're sympathizing with the flight attendants reading these travel horror stories, but not these ones. See for yourself below! 

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  • 01
    Cheezburger Image 10443101440
    via Unsplash+ (and Kenny Eliason)

    This image is for illustration only, and the subjects are models; the image does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • 02
    Accidental Seat Squatter I was on standby for a flight and was the first standby passenger to be given a seat. I was given a seat back in row 29. When I went to row 29, someone was in my seat and showed her boarding pass, confirming it was her seat. So I called the FA over and she couldn't have been nicer. She reassigned me a seat in Comfort+ and I sat down. A few minutes later, a father and daughter walked up and the father said "you're in one of our seats" and I super nicely explained I was ju
    via pinkney59
  • 03
    there is a mixup. A different FA came over and loudly scolded me "WHO told you you can sit there?!? Your ticket doesn't even say comfort+!!!" | described the first FA and was basically being publicly reprimanded in front of the plane when I was just following directions. I wasn't trying to scam a comfort seat- this is literally where she told me to sit. Another passenger even said to me- "I saw this whole thing happen and heard her tell you to sit here so don't worry" which gave me some relief.
    via pinkney59
  • 04
    SDQBound Something similar happened to me once, I was #1 for an upgrade at ATL and the gate agent told me she would follow YBYL so I stayed in the gate area until T-15. When all passengers at the gate already boarded, she told me to stick around because several connecting F passengers were already in the ground and could still make the connection. Fast forward at T-2 she
    via SDQBound
  • 05
    asks me to come with her, scans my BP but no upgrade receipt was produced. As we walk down the jetbridge she tells me to take one of the empty seats in F so I complied, she delivers paperwork and boarding door is closed. During taxi, another FA who wasn't at the door comes to me and asks me where I came from, and also asks me to show her a BP. She told
    via SDQBound
  • 06
    me I did not belong to F and asked me to move back to my original seat once we get in the air. I tried explaining to her that I got a last minute upgrade but she just shrugged. Luckily, the GA did upgrade me and the app was showing me in F, but not in my seat, so I showed it to the FA and she didn't even apologize.
    via SDQBound
  • 07
    Braxo Something similar happened to me by a standby customer. I had checked bags so I had a printed tickets throughout my journey. My first flight was delayed where I was going to miss my connection - my app updated with a new flight that would have delayed me a further 6 hours or so.
    via Braxo
  • 08
    But when I landed, I learned my original flight was delayed and at the very end of boarding - I figured I'd try using my original printed ticket which didn't work at the gate (feigned ignorance, it was kinda crumpled0 but as the doors were about to close the agent let me board. Get to my seat, it's taken - I go to an FA asking if there are any more available and there was.
    via Braxo
  • 09
    i made it home at a reasonable hour though without my checked bags. App was alerting me that I was missing my boarding on the correct flight. anyways I wondered if I was on - the manifest or not for the flight I took.
    via Braxo
  • 10
    Original_Kiwi_7810 This happened to me except with a civil and reasonable flight crew. It was a transatlantic flight and I got off standby to a seat in coach. Then someone had the same seat at me so they bumped me to C+. Then someone on C+ had the same seat as me and they moved me to D1. Maybe the luckiest I've ever been on a flight. It's crazy how a similar issue can swing the customer experience to two different extremes just depending on the flight crew involved.
    via Original_Kiwi_7810
  • 11
    RSecretSquirrel That's interesting. There was a post last week where a late boarding passenger found his seat given away by a FA. The FA refused to seat the late boarding passenger in the seat he paid for, and assigned him to a worse seat.
    via RSecretSquirrel
  • 12
    drew_anjuna Many years ago, I once got to my seat to find someone already in it with a boarding pass for the same seat as mine. I don't recall if I had been on standby at first myself or how exactly that SNAFU might have happened. Maybe the other passenger had been on standby and got to the seat first. Anyway,
    via drew_anjuna
  • 13
    when a flight attendant came to help, he escorted me towards the front of the plane, and the passenger in my seat gave me a sympathetic look, possibly thinking I might not get a seat at all due to the mix up. Instead, he put me in first class! So I had the last laugh. Fortunately I was never chastised, and it was quite smooth.
    via drew_anjuna
  • 14
    pshearer82 I did this once, I got bumped up to first in an aisle seat on one flight, 3C and the next flight was 3D. I didn't look at the app anymore once I was going to my seat. I had stuffed the paper printout in my jacket along with the one from previous flight so when I glanced at seat number once more I looked at the wrong one and sat in the wrong
    via pshearer82
  • 15
    seat. When the guy finally showed up, I am sure he thought I was trying to steal his seat. I apologized moved over. Innocent mistake but the sigh and comment that I should have checked before I sat down was a bit unnecessary. I showed him both tickets, said what happened and said I hope the rest of his day gets better (because this was obviously the worst thing that ever happened in his lifetime.)
    via pshearer82
  • 16
    cty_hntr I disagree on the blame here, the 2nd FA made the situation worst by publicly reprimanding the first FA. 2nd FA created the unnecessary chaos with the bossy escalation. For team building I always praise in public, and criticized in private. Getting everyone seated at boarding is time. crunch, first FA did the best to address the OP. Mistakes can happen, the FAs should've worked together to fix this oversight, rather than air dirty laundry.
    via cty_hntr
  • 17
    Guilty Objective4602 Yes! Husband and I (me on left side aisle, him in aisle of group of seats in the middle) were politely asked by a FA to trade seats with a mother and daughter on the far right side of a long flight to accommodate the child having seats in the middle where the armrests would raise, so the child and another one already in the middle could sleep across several open seats. I was exhausted and sick as a dog with bronchitis and didn't want to get up and move seats (and would have
    via Guilty_Objective4602
  • 18
    finally agreed to move seats on the promise that we'd have a row of three seats to ourselves with an open seat in the middle. The plane ultimately had to taxi back to the gate for a quick repair. Then, just as the flight was about to leave the gate again, a totally different FA randomly assigned some other passenger to sit in the open seat between us. We tried to protest (twice) and explain why we were protesting, or look for the other FA, but the second FA shut us down with the excuse that the
    via Guilty_Objective4602
  • 19
    So we sat with random very tall stranger in between us the whole long flight, in a worse seating situation than what we'd given up, with me miserable and sick and now also irate. Had the two flight attendants communicated in the least about the seat changes, that should have never happened.
    via Guilty_Objective4602

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