A man who requested a passenger give his child the window seat on a plane has been called “gross” after removing his shoes and socks mid-flight.
An unidentified Reddit user wrote about the incident in a post that has amassed over 17 thousand ‘upvotes’ in agreement.
The entry, accompanied by a picture of a sockless passenger, said: “Gave up my window seat for this guys [sic] kid as he looked super happy about it and didn’t have the heart to say “no”. I get the middle seat in the middle aisle and the dad does this all flight. Just gross.”
According to the post, the user had been assigned the window seat and considered the switch a kind gesture.
Reddit users flooded the comments section with their own stories of sockless passengers and disgust at the travel etiquette.
One person said: “People on flights suck.”
Another recalled: “I was an unaccompanied minor 10 years ago and I remember I was sat in the front next to a guy who had his shoes and socks off and his feet were rank.
“I told him to put them back on (quietly) and he said no thanks. So I LOUDLY asked if he could put them on because his feet were rank and making me nauseous. He put them on quick.”
The incident also highlighted the ongoing debate surrounding seat swapping on flights and trains.
“It infuriates me that people ask to swap seats on a flight like they couldn’t have booked a window seat in advance for the extra money. It infuriates me even more when people let them,” replied a Reddit user.
A man recently earned praise after he filmed himself confronting a fellow train passenger who was sitting in the seat he’d purchased ahead of time.
Diane Gottsman, a national etiquette expert and founder of The Protocol School of Texas told The Indepdnent that the only acceptable scenario where a traveller may ask a fellow passenger to switch seats is if a parent or guardian who found “there is no possible way” through pre-planning that they could have been seated next to their young child.