A woman traveling on a flight with her mom got the best possible surprise when they boarded the plane.
When Ashley Owusu booked their seats for the four-hour evening flight from Seattle, Washington, to San Antonio, Texas, with Alaska Airlines, she could never have known what would greet them onboard.
Personal space is at a premium on most flights. In a poll of over 3,100 U.S. passengers conducted by Upgraded Points, 54 percent of respondents said the person in the seat next to them infringed on their personal space during a flight.
Owusu has already tried to focus on the positives when it comes to travel, having started documenting her experiences with the TikTok channel anxiousgirlthattravels.
“I started my page to encourage other people to travel, especially women solo travelers,” Owusu told Newsweek. “I also love to look at it as a travel diary so I can look back at my videos and experience the joy I got from that specific trip all over again.”
On this particular occasion, her moment of “joy” came when they boarded and she realized “everyone on the plane had a row to themselves.”
Apart from her mom, of course, but that quickly changed. “As soon as my mom realized that this flight was basically empty, she told the flight attendant that she didn’t want to sit next to me,” Owusu said.
An empty flight. Every traveler had an entire row to themselves.
TikTok/@anxiousgirlthattravels
No longer crammed in alongside a stranger, Owusu said the flight that followed was one to remember.
“Having all of that extra space allowed me to place my personal bag under a seat other than the one directly in front of me so I could stretch my legs forward without kicking my bag and it allowed my mom to kick up her feet and lay across her entire row to sleep comfortably,” she said.
“I usually don’t drink the offered beverages on a flight because I hate having to ask people to get up so that I can use the bathroom but on this flight, I no longer had that anxiety and drank as much water and soda as I wanted to.”
Owusu has her own theories as to why the flight was so empty, which could be useful for anyone wanting to experience something similar.
“I believe the flight was so empty because of two things,” she said. “Firstly, the destination is not a popular one to my knowledge and secondly, this was an overnight flight.”
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Whatever the case, Owusu said she ranks it among her “top five favorite flights.”
“The space was amazing and will always be a favorite flight memory and it’ll encourage me to book more overnight flights,” she said.
“It doesn’t beat out memories like when I was an unaccompanied minor as a teenager and the flight attendant moved me up to first class where I ate all the candy I wanted, watched movie after movie, and got my own pillow and blanket for the first time or the flight I have taken on Emirates Airlines where I got to experience tasty full meals on board.”
Even so, a little more elbow room would go a long way for most air travelers.
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