Member-only story
Airline Travel in America
Aisle vs. Window vs. Middle-Seat Selection Etiquette
Why being stuck in the middle is not all bad
“A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step………the step taken to climb the ladder which gets you into the airplane…”
― Ankala Subbarao
Flying Near the Lap of Luxury
I am sitting in row 9 in the Economy Plus section of a well-known airline. There is Economy and Economy plus seating. Economy Plus offers a few extra inches of legroom and free snacks for about a hundred dollars more. My spouse is a six-foot, 280-pound man, so I bought the extra legroom and bigger seats.
We took off without incident, but now there is a commotion in the row right in front of me. The young woman in the middle seat is protesting. The conversation in front of me is one-sided and getting louder.
“You don’t get the window seat and the armrest. The armrest belongs to me,” she roars. The woman is in her mid-thirties, attractive with high cheekbones and intense blue eyes.
The man in the window seat is older and has an old-fashioned, scrabbly beard that someone should consider combing. He is ignoring her by continuing to look out the window. Her response was to get louder and louder.
