I was on a Southwest flight from Las Vegas to Orlando. Non-stop it’s a four and a half hour flight. We heard it was a nearly full flight but there would be a few empty seats. If you fly Southwest, you know it’s open seating, no reserved seats. I always get early boarding so I can get a window seat.

I was settled in at the back when a very large young woman took the aisle seat. She was easily over 300 pounds and took some time to get herself wedged into the seat and to request a seatbelt extender. I empathized as I used to weigh 340 pounds myself and HATED to fly back then! I chatted with her to hopefully make her more comfortable. We joked we’d put on our best bitch faces to discourage anyone from taking the middle seat.

When the plane gets down to the last few boarding passengers, flight attendants routinely point out remaining seats. There was an open middle seat in the row behind us but the flight attendant blocked the aisle and motioned for a man to take the middle seat in our row. I would later determine that the man was Chinese. I never heard him speak so I don’t know how much English he knew. I spoke up to the flight attendant that the middle seat behind us was open but she seemed determined to force the man into our row’s middle seat. He voiced no objection.

The flight attendant then proceeded to instruct the young woman in the aisle seat to get up. This proved to be an ordeal as she struggled to unwedge herself from the seat. I continued to point out that THERE’S A MIDDLE SEAT RIGHT THERE, in the row behind us but the flight attendant ignored me and never once looked at me.

As the young woman struggled to her feet and to get herself into the aisle, teenage [mean] girls a couple of rows back took out their phones and laughed and gasped as they took video of the woman’s humiliation. It was yet another ordeal for the woman to get back into the seat, then with the man in the middle. She encroached on his seat significantly so naturally he leaned over on me and would for the entire flight. He never once looked up at me. It was a miserable flight for all three of us.

The middle seat behind us remained empty as the flight took off. When the flight attendant came around to take our drink orders, I glared at her with vicious dagger eyes of death.

When we arrived in Orlando, the man was clearly eager to get out of his seat and the young woman got herself up and out of the way. As the man stepped into the aisle, I raised all the armrests so the woman could sit down and relax a little. I chatted with her and asked if she would mind if I wrote a letter to Southwest about what happened. She agreed with me that what the flight attendant did seemed to be deliberate.

I waited to deplane until the back was empty. I went up to the flight attendant and with my most menacing bitch face asked her in a snotty tone of voice what was her name. I mailed that letter the next day.

I fly almost every month and fly Southwest almost exclusively as I love their service as much as I love their low fares. In fact, I think they have the most fun, service-focused cabin crews in the business! So this experience was a deep disappointment to me. Southwest has a generous policy for passengers of size and I didn’t ask the woman if she’d requested an extra seat. There certainly had been one available. Still, I expected a flight attendant to have sized up the situation and done her best to let that one empty seat be next to that young woman.

I’ll never forget that flight attendant and her name. If I ever see her again…well, I’ll spend that flight planning what I’ll say to her on my way out.