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Many couples traveling together book an aisle seat and a window seat, hoping the middle seat will remain empty to gain extra space. However, this strategy often fails as planes are frequently full, and the middle seats tend to be occupied.
“That’s ok,” some travelers think, “we can always trade them the window seat and still sit together.” The best-case scenario involves gaining extra space with an empty middle seat, while the worst case still allows couples to sit next to each other. Hence, they consider it better to take a chance at the best case rather than book under less favorable conditions from the start.
Sometimes, however, middle-seat passengers refuse to move. One woman explained her preference for a middle seat over a window for two reasons: she is claustrophobic and prefers being closer to the aisle, and she gets up frequently to use the bathroom and prefers climbing over one person instead of two. She refused to swap her middle seat for a window but was willing to exchange it for an aisle. The woman holding the aisle seat declined since she had paid for it. Eventually, the middle-seat passenger relented and took the window but faced difficulties when needing to use the lavatory as both passengers did not honor their promise of moving.
