A traveller asked Reddit whether they were in the wrong for boarding a flight without their friend. Photo / 123f
A traveller asked Reddit whether they were in the wrong for boarding a flight without their friend. Photo / 123f
If you ditch your friend at a connecting airport and continue on the trip alone, are you a bad person?
This is the question one traveller asked members of the popular “Am I the A**hole” forum on Reddit last week.
“AITA for leaving friend behind at airport?” read the title of the post, which received 900 comments from readers, few of which were empathetic.
The person claimed they had just 40 minutes in a connecting airport to get on their next flight, the New York Post reported.
Moving through the airport, the pair reached an immigration checkpoint and while the person writing the post took one path, their friend appeared to take another path. Rather than wait on the other side of the passport checkpoint, the traveller decided to go to the gate and wait for them there.
“I went to the left, down the stairs and straight to the gate,” they wrote, adding their friend “scanned his passport, he went to the right instead because he didn’t see I went to the left”.
The traveller believed the path their friend took led to other gates, customs, and checks, which took longer to get around.
As the minutes counted down to the plane’s departure, the traveller decided to board the flight, hoping the friend was close behind. Unfortunately, they were not and they missed the flight.
The traveller said they didn’t regret taking the flight as they were both adults and responsible for themselves.
“He’s a grown man and I shouldn’t be forced to stay right next to him at all times just so he doesn’t go the wrong way if left alone for a minute,” they wrote in a post that has since been deleted.
They added that they often separate when travelling.
“During our vacations, I often ended up going ahead and him searching for me and calling me / writing me that he lost me,” they wrote.
If the traveller was hoping for people to affirm their travel approach, they were sorely mistaken and most judged them to be the “a**hole” in the situation.
“People who charge ahead and ignore their travel companions suck to travel with,” one person simply commented below, while others explained why the behaviour was poor form.
One person, who said a friend regularly walks off while they’re on holiday, said it was “so rude”.
“Why bother doing anything with friends if you just walk off on them,” they asked, while another said that people travelling together should wait for one another, adding that it “sounds exhausting” travelling with the person.
Immigration and passport checks can take a long time at the airport.
Several people pointed out that the friend wasn’t wasting time but had simply made a mistake.
“Your friend wasn’t wandering off or window shopping. They were going through the same line as you,” one person commented. Another said it sounded like the traveller had been “speeding through the airport” from the start, which is why the friend couldn’t see what direction they’d gone.
Several claimed they knew people who speed ahead when travelling and had either stopped travelling with the person or, in one instance, ended the friendship.
The fact that this “often” happens was also a red flag, others pointed out.
“If this was a one-time thing it would be no biggie,” one person wrote. “But since OP [original poster] seems to get off on it like they aren’t even friends, they seem like a huge AH. OP’s friend shouldn’t have allowed it more than twice,” they claimed, likening it to bullying.
Even if the traveller felt nervous about catching flights and getting there early, one traveller said they should save others the hassle and travel solo.
Describing themselves as “impatient and anxiety-riddled when it comes to flight times” and other parts of travel, they said they had decided to travel alone.
“I know I would be absolutely horrible to travel with, so to save my family and friends the displeasure of travelling with me I travel alone,” they wrote.
