A superstitious Delta Air Lines passenger on a recent flight to Los Angeles feared for her life simply because she had been assigned a seat in row 13 and was scared that the plane would crash if she were forced to sit in her allocated seat.
The bizarre incident was recounted by a user on Reddit going by the name of A350Flier on the social media network, who initially thought the woman was making a ruckus because she wasn’t comfortable sitting in an emergency exit row.
What a strange evening.
byu/A350Flier indelta
“My son and I were getting settled and Comfort+ began to board shortly after, and a woman comes on board and almost immediately begins panicking to a flight attendant in the aisle,” the poster wrote.
“It seemed baseless at first, and then she started loudly explaining to the flight attendant that she could not, under any circumstances, sit in row 13…. It turned out she was worried the plane would crash if she sat in row 13 because it was an unlucky number.”
One of the flight attendants tried to reassure the woman and explain that row 13 was just like any other emergency exit row on the plane, but it was to no avail. In the end, the flight attendant gave up trying to allay the woman’s concerns and found a passenger who was willing to switch seats.
That solution wasn’t, however, completely drama-free as the woman then wished the new occupant of seat 13C the best of luck, proclaiming that Delta Air Lines should avoid putting anyone in row 13 because its bad luck.
It’s unlikely that Delta is simply going to stop filling an entire row of seats because the number is considered unlucky by some, but it could simply skip row 13 altogether, as some airlines do.
Delta might not be superstitious, but a number of major airlines don’t have to worry about row 13 worriers because they skip the row altogether. That includes United Airlines on most aircraft types and Alaska Airlines – although the latter has started to phase out the practice.
Elsewhere, both Emirates and Qatar Airways skip row 13, and so do Aeromexico, Air France, Cathay Pacific, Ryanair and Singapore Airlines.
But that raises an interesting question… just because row 13 isn’t labelled, there are still 13 rows on a plane. In fact, many airlines routinely skip row numbers to coincide with aircraft layouts or to provide commonality between aircraft types in case of a last-minute aircraft swap.
Many commentators on the original Reddit post praised the flight attendants for how they dealt with the situation, while others pointed out the apparent absurdity of the woman’s fears.
Would you be happy to sit in row 13?
When I worked for Eastern Airlines in the mid-1970’s, we had no row 13.
Illogical. Do all Delta planes crash daily? Of course, she could fear only she will get a heart attack, not a plane crash
Why wait until you are on the plane to notice your seat assignment? If it is that important, book another seat row or deal with it at the check in counter. Nobody else needs to be subjected to this level of drama when on a plane.
I fly on Hawaiian airlines frequently and on the larger aircraft that fly between the mainland and the islands there is no row 13