Traveling with a toddler is always an adventure, but it can quickly become a nightmare when unexpected challenges pop up.

So, what would you do if an airline separated your family across the plane and refused to fix the issue?

Would you stand your ground?

Or would you go along with their plan and hope for the best?

In today’s story, one mom finds herself in this very dilemma.

Here’s how it all went down.

Toddler Travel Adventures

13 years ago, my husband, my then 3-year-old son, and I were traveling by plane to visit some family for Christmas.

I had booked the tickets through a 3rd party vendor like Expedia or Kayak instead of through the airline directly.

When I booked, I selected seat assignments (this is before the airlines charged for that) and entered the names and birthdays of my family, as required.

The first flight went as fine as it can go traveling with a toddler.

But before we landed, I was looking at the boarding passes for the second flight and noticed that we weren’t seated in the seats I picked.

It turns out their seats were not even near each other.

Instead, we were in 3 separate parts of the plane – something like seats 17A, 24C, and 28B.

So when we landed, I went to talk to the nearest gate agent, and after I handed her the boarding passes, the conversation went something like this:

“Excuse me, there’s an issue with our seats. These aren’t the seats I select….”

The gate agent cut me off in a very unfriendly tone, “Well, you shouldn’t have booked with a 3rd party vendor. You should have booked directly with the airline. The airline doesn’t have to honor the seat assignments.”

The gate attendant did not care to help.

“Yes, but there’s going to be a problem because…”

Cutting me off again, “Well, I can’t do anything about it. You’re just going to have to sit in the seats we assigned you.”

“But you see…”

Her tone changed quickly when she found out one of the passengers was only 3.

“I can’t help you. It’s just a one-hour flight. You can sit in your assigned seats.”

In a super, over-the-top, friendly voice with only the slightest hint of snark, “Sure, no problem. We can sit separately. It’s going to be a really interesting flight for everyone on the plane with my 3-year-old sitting by himself, surrounded by strangers.”

And I turned to walk away.

In a panicked voice, “Ma’am….ma’am…can you come back to the desk please.”

And amazingly, she found two seats next to each other in about five seconds after that.

Thus, the sanity of an entire flight of people was saved from hearing a toddler meltdown.

That would’ve been a terrible flight for everyone.

Let’s see what the people over at Reddit have to say about this story.

This is great news for parents.

Agree! Seating a young child away from the parents could be dangerous.

It would’ve been malicious but also irresponsible.

Here’s a good way to make someone want to switch seats.

Good for the mother!

Leaving a toddler unattended on an airplane is never an ideal situation because too many things can happen; shame on that airline employee!

If you liked that post, check out this one about an employee that got revenge on HR when they refused to reimburse his travel.