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A man was travelling home when he was offered a first class upgrade – but in a remarkable act of kindness, he gave it to a stranger sitting next to him, sparking a friendship that has lasted more than 20 years

A man has won hearts after explaining why he handed over a complimentary first-class upgrade to a complete stranger.

He recounted how he was heading back to Florida from Costa Rica after spending several weeks working overseas. Utterly shattered, he asked his company to book an aisle seat so he could stretch out his legs during the flight. But when he boarded, he found a “rather large woman” sitting in his allocated seat. He explained on Reddit: “As I checked my ticket, she explained she had sprained her ankle and would I mind sitting in the middle seat, as she was having trouble getting in and out of the seats.

“I looked at her and realised that she and I were probably the same age. I don’t normally like middle seats, but she needed the aisle seat more than I and so I said ‘sure’.”

The pair struck up a conversation and began learning about one another’s lives when, half an hour into the flight, a flight attendant approached him with a complimentary upgrade offer.

He revealed: “I thought about it for a moment and said to my seatmate, ‘Why don’t you go ahead and go up. you can use that seat more than I can’. She looked surprised and shed a tear before accepting.

“The flight attendant took her up, and then came back (with a drink) and said: ‘We’re not supposed to do that, but thank you for helping her’.

“Anyway, that was more than 20 years ago, and we still correspond from time to time. Sometimes, little acts make large impacts.”

One social media user responded: “That’s such a beautiful reminder that small kindnesses can mean the world to someone else.”

Another chimed in: “Exactly, you showed how little kindness can ripple into something much bigger, you showed love to the family that means a lot to them.

“This is the kind gesture the world need without anticipating anything in return.”

A third added: “That’s such a wholesome story. Funny how what feels small to us can mean the world to someone else. You never know the weight someone’s carrying when you decide to help. Makes me think those little choices on flights or in lines stick with people way longer than we realise.”

Yet another user shared: “Reading this hit me because I remember when I was a kid, strangers did the same so my mum could sit with me on flights.

“I never realised how huge that was until I got older. Honestly, it’s just a good reminder that kindness has a ripple effect. Now I try to do one small ‘inconvenience’ a week on purpose, kind of keeps me grounded.”

Travel chaos

It comes as a passenger sparked a debate after reclining their plane seat on a long-haul flight without first checking behind them.

Like many passengers on long journeys, they decided to get comfortable after the meal service had finished and prepared to recline their seat before trying to get some sleep.

However, what happened next was the last thing they expected. As they pushed their seat backwards, they suddenly heard somebody shouting: “Whoa, whoa, whoa!”

At first, they assumed the noise was coming from the TV show they were watching on their tablet and carried on as normal.

But moments later, a passenger sitting behind them tapped on their seat and delivered a stern warning.

Actor Finn Wolfhard has revealed that the ending of Stranger Things, which he had been part of his life for a decade, was ‘depressing’ as he struggled to find himself again

Finn Wolfhard has revealed he felt “really lost” after the ending of Stranger Things. The Canadian actor, 23, became an international star playing Mike Wheeler in the sci-fi drama on Netflix.

But after a decade as the character, Finn says that while he feels somewhat liberated to pursue other career ventures, the show’s ending came at a cost, leaving him feeling “lost”.

Asked in a new interview if he felt liberated, he said: “For sure, yeah. At first I felt really lost, because that’s your life for so long and so many of the crew and cast were so integral to the person that you are and to your identity.”

He went on to tell The Guardian: “You almost have a kind of withdrawal for a little while. Then you realise all those relationships, all those friendships, they’re around forever.”

Although Finn and his co-stars, including Millie Bobby Brown, knew the programme would be drawing to a close after the fifth series, it took time for the cast and crew to process it.

Finn said: “Every year it was like, OK, I know I’m going to be in Atlanta filming this thing with the same people for the next however long. It was like my school in a really odd way. Everyone was having a great time, hanging out … All the cast lived in the same neighbourhood. We would go to each other’s houses all the time.

“The vibe [during the last season] was almost like, ‘Oh, we’ll back next year’, but once we got about halfway through, everyone started to realise like, ‘Oh, This is it.’ And then everyone just really valued the time we all had together for that last half.”

While he says that the show ended at the right time, he added: “It was pretty depressing for everyone when it ended … but it feels absolutely right that we’ve ended at the time that we did.”

In the past, Finn has spoken about how he wasn’t prepared for such global fame as a child, admitting that if he had the chance to turn back the clock, he would “put himself in therapy”.

Speaking to People magazine, the actor said: “I don’t think I’d ever go back and do something over, but maybe I would go back to when the show first came out and blew up, and I would directly put myself into therapy.

“But it was so crazy and overnight, that there was not really any time to think about that.” He went on to state that he would “probably” make a mistake in other ways, in childhood, adding that life is about “trial and error”.

Finn has also spoken publicly about suffering from panic attacks and struggling with anxiety from around the age of 15. Despite his struggles, Finn said he didn’t speak to anyone about the issues because of his “whirlwind career”.

He said in the past: “Everyone was like, ‘Look at him, he’s fine. He’s having the best time.’ But in reality, I was probably also developing and things were happening in my brain and anxieties were forming and things that I didn’t realize that I had to bury because of how I had to feel at work.”

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Stranger Things favourites are back again as a father-daughter duo.

Stranger Things fans are getting hyped up over an unexpected Netflix reunion.

Netflix has confirmed that David Harbour and Millie Bobby Brown, who played Jim Hopper and Millie Bobby Brown in Stranger Things, are going to be working together again.

The iconic pair will be teaming up in an untitled father-daughter spy thriller, loosely inspired by author Paul Warner’s debut novel A Spy in the Blood.

What’s even more exciting is that this upcoming series will be created by none other than Jack Thorne, co-creator of Netflix’s Adolescence, as well as other hits like His Dark Materials and the Enola Holmes franchise.

Harbour and Brown will be returning to familiar territory in the new series as they will be portraying a dad and daughter, very much like the familial dynamic between Stranger Things’ Hopper and Eleven.

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In the freshly announced series, Harbour will be playing “disgraced FBI agent turned security expert Matt Wolfe” while actress Millie Bobby Brown is behind Rebecca, his estranged daughter and FBI agent.

However, Matt is drawn back into the world that he left behind when Rebecca “vanishes on a mission, forcing him back into a field that has evolved beyond him”.

While the spy thriller has been given a straight-to-series order by Netflix, there has been no word on when subscribers can expect the series just yet.

Netflix Head of Scripted Series, US and Canada Jinny Howe said: “We are delighted to bring this spy drama to life with an extraordinary group of talent we’ve been fortunate to collaborate with before.

“Jack Thorne’s ability to find the deeply human story inside a thriller is unmatched, and watching Millie Bobby Brown and David Harbour reunite — this time as estranged father and daughter on opposite sides of a crisis — is something audiences are going to love.”

Harbour hinted at the collaboration in an interview with Variety, teasing: “You’ll see more of me and Millie. 10 years wasn’t enough,” referring to their time together on Stranger Things.

“There is a special bond there. I love her, she loves me.”

Brown also praised her former Stranger Things co-star for bringing them back together, telling the Happy Sad Confused podcast this week: “Father-daughter is where we live, but Netflix will always be our home.

“The David Harbour project is sooner than expected, and it’s David’s idea, so kudos to him.”

Stranger Things is available to watch on Netflix.