Getting comfortable on an airplane can be a challenge. Whether you like flying or not, when it comes to the pros and cons of flying, there are plenty of both. On the one hand, air travel is the quickest way to get from A to B.
It’s also an ideal means of transport that is relatively safe and comfortable, thanks to advances in technology. Let me ask you a quick question before we start – if you had the choice would you rather have an entire row to yourself or would you rather sit next to someone on an airplane?
Chances are you’d rather have at least one empty seat next to you. When Savannah flew she liked she to book a seat where she wasn’t near anyone else.
“I’m not the biggest person on the airplane, but I’m not the smallest,” she wrote on Facebook. “My worst nightmare is someone being uncomfortable because they have to sit next to me.” While on a UA flight, the mother needed to change her flight. This meant she couldn’t pick her seat, she was assigned one at the gate. When she got on the plane she saw that she was assigned a seat next to a man, who she described as in his 60s. She sat down and as everyone got settled and prepared for takeoff, the woman couldn’t help but notice the man’s phone. “His phone was maybe 12 inches from my face and he proceeded to text someone that he was sitting next to ‘a smelly fatty,’” she wrote.
The woman didn’t need to read the rest of the text message. She turned away from the man and began to cry. “Before I knew it, I could feel hot, salty tears coming down my face,” she wrote. “I sat and cried silently, hoping this guy didn’t try to make small talk, because I didn’t trust how I would react and I didn’t want to get kicked off the plane. I was so hurt.” To make matters worse, the pilot shared some bad news with the passengers. Their flight was delayed. As she continued to sob, someone from behind tapped her seatmate’s shoulder. “Hey–I need to talk to you,” she recalled the person, later identified as Chase, saying. “We are switching seats. Now.” After some words were exchanged the men changed seats.
Once Irwin was seated next to Savannah, the two chatted so that she would forget her previous rude seatmate. It worked. “I told him that he was a blessing sent to me and how thankful I was that he was there,” she wrote. Although Savannah post on Facebook received thousands of interactions, Irwin insisted he didn’t intervene for the fame. “I was going to wait until the end of the flight to say something but I could not have this guy sit next to her this whole flight and her thinking he’s making fun of her,” Chase told WTVF. “It really gets to me deep down when I see someone crying, and when I saw her crying it really hit me hard and actually got sick to my stomach.”
