Oftentimes, people who collect points for travel are told they have first-world problems. By this, I mean having to choose between flying to Vietnam on either Emirates or Singapore Airlines. Or whether it’s worth planning a layover in Dublin so you have enough time to go into the city for lunch.
Are they first-world problems? Well, yeah. But while we’ve had to make both of these choices, one of the most stress-inducing decisions I have to make on a regular basis is choosing which seats we’ll sit in. While on an international flight in business class, this might mean choosing whether my wife Sharon and I will sit behind one another in window seats or share a middle row. But since we fly domestic much more often than we do international, way more often, we have to pick seats on a narrow-body domestic flight with a 3-3 configuration.
I’ve discussed how we pick seats in several posts, but recently, Points with a Crew name-checked us about our strategy of picking a window and aisle seat, hoping to score an empty middle seat. While we’ve often used this method when selecting seats or if we boarded early on a Southwest flight, we’ve always been considerate. Here’s how I described what we did when we picked the window and aisle seat:
Is this wrong? If someone gets the middle seat, we’ll let them have the window (Sharon likes to have the aisle seat on longer trips). If it’s a short flight, we might even agree to give you the aisle seat, and we’ll take the window and middle seat.
Part of me feels like I’m part of an AITA thread on Reddit where I’m defending what we did, hoping for an empty middle seat.
What’s changed?
We’ve changed our strategy since we posted that in early 2023. That’s because we’ve rarely been on a narrowbody flight that hasn’t been almost 100% full, if not overbooked. I don’t imagine travel this summer to be any different. If hoping for an empty seat isn’t practical, what are we doing instead?
Our current go-to plan is to book adjacent aisle seats. We don’t have to sit directly next to one another, and we’re more likely to text each other during a flight than have a conversation. By sitting adjacent, I’m still able to help Sharon get her bag into the overhead (Note from Sharon: if you’re new to our blog, I’m 4’6″ tall; I can’t reach the overhead at all). Since we’re both getting older, having aisle access is important when you need access to the lavatory on longer flights. And now that I know how to raise the aisle armrest, I don’t have to worry about letting the middle seat have access to both armrests.
Do we still sit next to each other?
Sure, there might be flights when there are not two adjacent aisle seats. There could also be flights where an airline wants to charge extra for every aisle seat but not for a middle seat. In those cases, we might take an aisle and middle seat. For a shorter flight, it’s not worth an extra $30+.
Do we ever sit apart?
Yes, there are plenty times we don’t sit next to one another. Most often, this is when I want to have a seat with extra legroom, but Sharon is OK with a basic seat (Sharon: again, 4’6″. I don’t need leg room LOL). This could be if I want to grab the extended-legroom seat on Southwest.
This is considered an exit row seat. Sharon doesn’t feel comfortable sitting in the exit row because she doesn’t think she’d be able to perform the tasks asked if there’s an emergency (and yes, that’s why she will never sit in an exit row.) But she’ll let me enjoy the legroom while she sits in the nearest regular aisle seat.
Flying in the window and aisle
We’ve even flown in window and aisle seats in the same row with a stranger between us. It was an early flight, and I wanted to sleep in the window seat, while Sharon still wanted the aisle access. We didn’t talk all flight. In fact, it was surprising to our seatmate when we landed and I took Sharon’s bag from the overhead; they didn’t know we were traveling together.
Final Thought
While I didn’t think our plan of picking a window and aisle seat was ever wrong, the only reason we did it was to try to get an empty middle seat. With few to no empty seats, it makes more sense to plan for a full plane and book the seats we want.
This might mean booking two aisle seats, an aisle and middle seat or even two seats further apart if I want a seat with extra legroom. We still occasionally book an aisle and window, but only if that’s what we want, and I have no plans of giving up my window. And believe me, if I have the window, the shade will be open and I’ll be looking out during the flight.
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2 comments
Pick window aisle all the time — if lucky, nobody between us. If not lucky, who cares? She wants the window and I want the aisle. Never talk over the middle. Our worst case is that we each get the seat we would have picked if flying solo. Our marriage is strong enough that we don’t need to be next to each other every second, no matter how long the flight.
Yeah – I like adjacent aisle seats when it’s just 2 of us.