A father sparked a viral debate after complaining that Southwest Airlines seated his two-year-old in a separate row from the rest of the family, an outcome he said he didn’t expect when booking the flight.
The discourse intensified when he admitted he had intentionally refused to pay for seat selection.
A Thursday tweet by Cory Watilo (@watilo) would soon gain 2.4 million views as X users debated whether he was wrong to complain that Southwest Airlines had sat two-year-old in a random row by himself.
Early in the morning, Watilo wrote that he had booked free seats on a flight, and because he wasn't forking over any money, "their seats were auto-assigned."
This put a two-year-old alone in a row apart from his mom and five-year-old sister.
He added that he "sorta figured when the websites breaks out age 0-4, they'd factor this in but nah."
Watilo specifically said that he refused to pay for seats he could get for free. Instead, he finds it unacceptable that "Southwest doesn't have any logic in place to prevent this."
That certainly would prevent a lot of problems, considering how common seat-switching drama is online. Debates over whether anyone should feel obligated to switch spots with a parent separated from their kid because they didn't book the flight seats together have raged for many years.
In the case of Watilo's family, the resolution was drama-free. In a final update, the dad shared messages with his wife confirming that someone switched with her toddler without a fuss.
"He was already sitting in the wrong spot so it was super easy and now that whole row is chatting very happily," said his wife.
"2 million people stressed over nothing," Watilo replied.
"Typical millennial parents"
A lot of people did get rather worked up over the post as they accused the dad of being cheap and selfish.
"Stop being broke and fly another airline then," said @NY_LBSS.
"If YOU need to have seats with YOUR family, YOU need to assume the responsibility for YOUR family, not rely on Southwest to accommodate your specific needs," wrote @justinackermann.
"You probably sit in the isle and complain about the guy in the window seat who keeps the window open."
Some even accused him of being to precious with the two-year-old.
"Typical millennial parents, coddling their children in every situation," said @rickjones98. "Give the kid a juice box and a coloring book and have them sit in their seat. Maybe learn how to turn the iPad off and have a conversation with their seat mate."
Others defended Watilo, chiding fellow X users for putting the responsibility on an everyday father instead of a massive corporation that could fix this if they wanted to.
"The replies are astonishing on this post," said @alper99. "People are more focused on the dad as to why he didn’t pay rather than the greedy multi billion cooperation which is separating a family traveling together unless they pay up."
"This is a problem other airlines have fixed if the kid is under the age they could travel alone," @dougstafford pointed out. "Get with it S.W."
The internet is chaotic—but we’ll break it down for you in one daily email. Sign up for the Daily Dot’s newsletter here.
