American Airlines passenger puts ‘seat stealer’ on blast – and 27 rows back: ‘I felt good’

It felt almost as good as sitting next to an empty middle seat.

An American Airlines frequent flyer recounted the moment they spotted an oncoming seat stealer as she slumped nearly 27 rows into her assigned seat — much to the delight of other passengers.

One Redditor, who said they fly almost every week for work, shared a list of things their fellow flyers do that annoy them under the r/americanairlines subreddit.

“Always trying to take seats that aren’t theirs, holding up rides or just being rude,” they began their now-viral rant.

The poster revealed that they saw a woman who had purchased seat 35B get comfortable in seat 8C next to her mother. A few minutes later, the real owner of the seat arrived and noticed that the woman was in the wrong seat.

The seat thief tried to calm the real 8C passenger into switching seats, according to the post.

“The seat stealer then says, ‘Can you move to my seat, as I want to sit next to my mother.'” The person [whose seat] asked what seat it is and the seat stealer says 35B,” the Redditor writes.

“I don’t know what happened to me, but I said: “Are you serious king?! Move to 35B from 8D? You are crazy,” they added.

The outburst caused other passengers to laugh at the would-be seat stealer, who was shocked and scurried back to her proper seat after being told no again by the actual 8D passenger.

“So the seat stealer had to get up and go to the back, glaring at me as he did so. As she glared, I said, ‘You can stare at me all you want, but [you’re] a– it’s still going back to 35B!’ ”, writes the Redditor.

“It felt good to put a seat stealer in her place. Small victories matter!”

Comments on the thread were quick to praise the unknown passenger and the seat protector.

“I like to put seat stealers back in their seats. It’s a guilty pleasure for me,” revealed a flight attendant for another airline.

“Maybe next time mom will book the seats together, even if it costs more. Some people are so right!” one user commented.

“Does everyone clap? I would have applauded,” added another.

“I had this weird thing happen to me on a United flight and the woman who tried to steal my seat had obviously bad plastic surgery. There has to be some kind of correlation there,” another noted.

Some users wondered why the apparent seat stealer’s mother hadn’t bought a ticket with her daughter — or why the thief hadn’t tried to buy a higher seat in the first place.

“If she wanted to sit next to her mom that bad, she’d ask the 35 degree celsius guy if he wants to sit in row 8,” one user suggested.