A woman was baffled when a family boarded her train and the mother stormed over to her and demanded she give up her disabled seat so her family could sit down, but karma soon stepped in
Jess Flaherty Senior News Reporter
12:54, 26 Oct 2025
The woman was sitting in a disabled seat when an “entitled” passenger “demanded” she move (stock image)(Image: Super Karmen/Getty Images)
A woman sitting in a disabled seat on a train was stunned when an “entitled” mother “demanded” she get up and move so she and her family could sit down. But the woman soon enjoyed “malicious delight” after allowing the mother’s actions to blow up in her face.
Train etiquette is a contentious topic with many people irate and frustrated by their fellow passengers’ unwanted behaviour – be it loud phone conversations, spreading their bags and belongings all over empty seats and preventing people from sitting down, eating smelly food, and more.
One woman, who has a limp and struggles to walk quickly, usually sits in the disabled seat when travelling home on the train.
The train is “set up in a way” that it operates as a “full train for 90% of the line” before it “splits into two trains” towards the end of the line, with one part sticking to residential, suburban areas and the other heading towards the airport.
Any passengers wishing to go to the airport must sit in the correct section of the train or they’ll be whisked off to “the suburbs”. The woman explained that there’s currently an uptick in tourists and people travelling to the airport due as it’s “holiday season” in her German town, and “every day” she sees people wanting to go to the airport but entering “the rear part of the train towards the suburbs by mistake”.
On Reddit, she explained: “I usually help those people out and tell them when they can best change to get into the front part of the train to the airport. You can easily spot them with a big suitcase looking a bit out of place.
“I have a bit of a limp on [my] right leg so I’m pretty slow and usually sit in the disabled seat, makes it easier for me to get in and out of the train.”
She then said recently, an “entitled family” made up of a mother, father, two children and a grandmother got on the train with their suitcases, and “started arguing about if the train goes to the airport or not”, with the mother “being very sure” it did, but they were in the wrong section.
As they started looking for somewhere to sit, the mother came over to the woman and told her to make room for the family and then said she “should not be sitting there”.
The woman continued: “To be honest, I would have made room for them anyways, but I only smiled at them and got up without another word, but Mom was not done yet. Telling me off how rude I am and that I should look out for people who actually need those spots lol.”
Of course, not all disabilities are visible but the father did point out the woman’s limp and said she’s “probably disabled”, but the mother looked at her with “sour grapes, just very much [an] insincere apology.”
But the woman got her revenge. She added: “I was staying quiet towards them, moving a couple seats over and watching with somewhat malicious delight as they realised they were in the wrong part of the train and missed the last station to switch over.”
In the title of her post, she clarified the “entitled” mother “missed her flight” after “demanding” her disabled seat. In the comments section, fellow Reddit users shared their thoughts. One person simply said: “Karma.”
Another agreed: “Not only that; OP [original poster] allowed Karma to run its course. Much like the train. And their flight.” Someone else quipped: “A first-class ticket to poetic justice, courtesy of the universe’s timetable.”
