'I told myself, "All's well that ends well." But nope': Father goes head-to-head with incompetent airline's flight attendants who seat his 4-year-old child alone

Author image for Elna McHilderson
Elna McHilderson • Managing Editor
Apr 8, 2025 10:00 AM EDT

When it comes to traveling via airplane, it always tends to be chaotic. The more layovers you have, the less organized it gets—and, depending on the airline, it can be the most chaotic no matter what. Airlines are all about the money, now, they do not care about the passenger's comfort. If you are not a top tier premier frequent flyer gold platinum big spender richy rich flyer, then you are nothing to them. It doesn't even matter if you splurged this time and paid extra for a specific seat, if you aren't spending thousands of dollars on them every month, then you are worthless. 

 

Obviously, in my tone, you can see that I too have had some insufferable experiences while flying. It's hard to come by anyone who travels and hasn't had at least one poor airline experience. This most recent case we've come across is extra perplexing because it's like these flight attendants think a toddler should be treated just like one of their adult passengers, in fact, should be treated like their lowest tier adult passengers because that toddler isn't one of their higher paying customers… 

 

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  • We'll let this Redditor call out which airline, but it ain't pretty and many others chime in to share similar stories in the comments. This family was a dad, mom, baby, and toddler traveling together. Traveling with little kids is already stressful, so to make it a little easier, you book seats next to each other—and that is exactly what this family did. However, once the plane was changed to a different one, they separated the family. They moved the mom and baby together, but the dad was alone and the FOUR-YEAR-OLD CHILD was seated alone. They could not compute why this wasn't an okay thing, and the dad was not going to let this fly, PUN INTENDED. See how it all ended up below! 

  • Cheezburger Image 10491115520
    via Unsplash+ (and Hanson Lu)

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • "Our 4-year-old was seated alone and United acted like we were the problem"

    This story is so bad, I still can't believe it actually happened. We were flying from Geneva to Newark (UA957)—my wife and I, our four-year-old, and our 18-month-old. We checked in the day before and were all seated in the same row. Shortly after, we received a text from United
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  • saying the aircraft had changed, and so had our seats. In the new configuration, my wife and our 18-month-old were seated together, I was four rows ahead, and our four- year-old was seated diagonally behind my wife, across the aisle and one row back. Alone.
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  • We immediately reached out to United to fix the situation and asked to be seated as two pairs. After an hour chatting with a rep, they were able to move my seat to the row directly in front of my wife and younger son.
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  • But my four-year-old was still alone, and we were told, "It's out of our control." They advised us to speak to the gate agent. Once the gate opened, I explained the situation to the agent. She took our
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  • boarding passes and said she'd call us back when they had a solution. About 20 minutes later, I was called up again but it was a different agent, and he had no idea what was going on (still not sure what prompted the call,
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  • honestly). As I walked back to wait, I overheard another family going through the exact same issue-kids aged 6 and 10. Pre-boarding started, and we still had no solution or updated boarding passes. I
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  • returned to the desk and saw them negotiating with a man in his mid-thirties. He said, "If I'm not compensated, I'm not moving." I get it—nobody wants to move without a reason—but ultimately, he refused and boarded.
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  • Now I'm starting to get anxious. I asked the agents if they could split up a large group of retirees, assuming some were seated together. The agent replied, "They're Premier members. We can't do that." So I asked why so many people seemed to be getting options and votes in this situation when my four- year-old clearly hadn't. No response.
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  • Finally, they said they had a solution. Relief. We were handed four boarding passes. We went to scan them, but one was rejected. The agent tried again—still red. Flustered, she told us to "just go." We walked onto the plane and to our seats― only to see the same guy from earlier, the one who had refused to move, sitting in one of our seats.
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  • I looked down. Sure enough, one of the boarding passes they printed had his name on it. It wasn't over. I spoke to the flight attendant, explained the situation, and she asked for my passport and boarding pass so she could go back to the gate. I started
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  • walking with her, but before she exited the plane, she suddenly turned to me and said, “Oh, sir, you have to stay on the plane." lignored her-I wasn't about to let the flight take off with my passport and boarding pass somewhere else. I had zero
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  • Cheezburger Image 10491135232
    via Unsplash+ (and Trung Nhan Tran)

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • confidence in their ability to fix anything, and at that point, I technically wasn't even checked into the flight. At the gate, I noticed two first-class tickets on the screen that hadn't been claimed. I said, "Let's make this easy-just swap us into
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  • those two and we're out of your hair." The agent replied, "Sir, I can't do that. It's too expensive." I said, "You're about to seat a four-year-old alone. This is a safety issue."
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  • He said, "You're diagonal from him-one aisle, one row. Isn't that okay?" I asked, "How am I supposed to help him put on an oxygen mask in an emergency? And why am I explaining this to you?"
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  • Finally-finally-with boarding almost complete, he found a solution. We had two pairs. Boarding passes in hand, I walked down the jetway, trying to calm myself. I told myself, "All's well that ends well." But nope.
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  • As soon as I stepped onto the plane, the same flight attendant I had ignored earlier pulled me aside and said, "Sir, I need to let you know we have to file an FAA report because you deboarded the plane." I replied, "Great-make sure to mention that you let someone on without a boarding pass."
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  • The rest of the flight was uneventful-except for the petty comments and lack of service from that same flight attendant. But that's another story, and this post is long enough already.
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  • In the end, this experience was almost too absurd to believe. The number of times I heard, "I'm sorry, but it's out of our control," combined with the obvious safety issue (a four-year-old seated alone) and the security breach (someone boarding without a valid pass), makes me honestly afraid to ever fly United again.
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  • Beththemagicalpony I'm a mom, have a masters in early childhood and I run a 150 child capacity daycare. I would be livid if I was seated by an unattended 4 year old. I'm fully aware of the safety and liability issues. I can't understand how an airline isn't.
    via Beththemagicalpony
  • writerdust Yeah pretty sure if they had just asked the people next to the 4 year old if they would rather move or take care of a 4 year old for the whole flight, somebody would have moved.
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  • Tasty_Lab_8650 Did it to me 12 years ago, our first flight with our then 8 MONTH old. We had seats, then we didn't. The three of us booked a row together, and then my 8 MONTH old was alone. I wasn't seated with my husband either. They just split us all up. I called immediately when I saw it, and they said talk to the gate agent. This guy was so nasty. I was begging for some help. He said, "i will see what I can do." I said," she is 8 months old. There is no way this should happen." (And i know l
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