Mom Shares Bizarre Encounter With Plane Passenger Who Was Sat in Her Seat

A mom-of-three has described the difficulties she encountered when boarding a flight only to discover a man was sitting in her seat and refusing to move.

Leah Ova, who lives in San Francisco, regularly travels by air to the East Coast to see family and flies over to Europe where her husband is originally from.

"As much as I'd like to stay home for the holidays, we're often traveling to spend time with our families," she told Newsweek. "This was one of those trips."

Already dealing with the stress of navigating young kids on and off planes and in and out of airports, on this occasion Ova's journey was made more complicated when she discovered an unknown man sitting in one of the five seats the family had booked for their trip. What followed was a bizarre encounter that Ova later shared on TikTok.

According to Transport International Security magazine, over the course of 2022, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) received reports of 961 unruly passenger incidents.

While Ova's encounter may not have fallen into that category, it certainly is symptomatic of an atmosphere of frayed nerves and short fuses among some passengers.

Speaking in the video, which has already been viewed over 1.8 million times on social media, Ova described how, as she came to the five seats she had booked for her husband and three kids, she found a man sitting in one of their places.

Eager not to jump to conclusions and knowing that seats sometimes get "double booked," she asked him what seat number he was. It immediately became clear he was supposed to be sitting by the window rather than in the aisle seat. Ova said she told him "I think you are in the wrong seat" while still "trying to be polite."

However, the man told her, "I don't know if that's true." At this point, Ova started to point out how she was traveling with three kids. She said that he "immediately" raised his voice, telling her, "If you want me to move so your family can sit together, that's fine. But I don't know that I'm in the wrong seat."

Ova said that she told him if he had felt "really passionately" that he needed to sit on the aisle, she might have considered switching, to which he replied: "If you're asking me to vote for your family, I'm open to moving."

At this point, Ova had had enough and instead turned around to her "Eastern European husband" and asked him to "deal with it." The man moved to his assigned seat moments later, with Ova slamming him for trying to make her look like "a Karen" by refusing to move. The scenario was a painfully familiar one to many watching online.

One TikToker wrote: "As a flight attendant I see stuff like this happen way to much." And a second commented: "Over the course of 6 flights my family and I were on recently, 3 times someone was in OUR booked seat."

A third TikToker posted: "Had a guy in my aisle seat recently. He wouldn't move. I told him I need the bathroom often so he'd have to get up often. He huffed but moved to his own seat- 2 rows back! I didn't leave my seat once during that flight."

Ova told Newsweek: "It's definitely frustrating that there are going to be adults on the plane acting like children, even though my kids were great on that flight.

"My best guess is that he wanted the aisle seat and had booked the window. I brought it up, and would've been fine switching, but he obviously wanted me to look like the one who was being difficult," Ova added.

"Plane travel puts just about everyone in a bad mood these days. The legroom is so tight. You're practically on top of the person beside you. I think it's bringing out everyone's worst behavior."

Ova said her husband has largely moved on from the incident. When she asked him what he said to get the man to move, he told her he simply stated: "You're definitely in the wrong seat."

Ova said she shared her experience after seeing someone on TikTok complaining about an "entitled" family asking them to switch seats.

"I think it's been popular because parents are tired of being shamed for traveling with their kids, and women are tired of men who simply won't listen to them, but will listen to a man who says the exact same thing," Ova added.