On a Boeing 737 there's three seats on either side of the aisle. When those three seats are filled with people, that's six elbows. However, there's only four arm rests.
Clearly the person on the aisle gets the arm rest nearest that side, and clearly the person by the window gets the arm rest up against that side of the plain. The person in the middle gets at least one of the two that run between the seats. However, that leaves one left on the other side of the middle person. Who gets that one?
It would seem that because the persons on the aisle and on the window have, respectively, the option to get into the aisle or the option to look out the window, the person in the middle should get the extra arm rest as something of a consolation prize; you can't get up and you can't see out, so your elbows should have dibs on that space to rest.
However, the situation works thusly: The extra armrest goes to the person who is the bigger asshole (whether intentionally or obliviously).
One thing is certain: No one gets any of the space over those middle armrests. Even if one claims the extra armrest, one only gets that two inches; one does not get to poke one's elbows over into the seat area of the person in the next seat.
And perhaps someday Queen Oblivion in window seat 33F will figure that out. Or maybe someday she'll get an elbow in the face. Hey, there won't be room for that arm on the rest; it has to go somewhere.
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The best part is this: When she walked up during the boarding phase, me already in middle seat 33E, and she saw she'd need to ask me to move in order for her to get to her window seat, she said "You're going to hate me." At the time I joked that it was too early in the flight for me to hate her, and as I moved out into the aisle to let her in I asked jocularly if she planned on doing something later. She just smiled and slid over to her spot by the window.
Shortly after the plane took off she had already claimed that armrest between us and poked her elbow over it as she flipped through the in-flight magazine in the exaggerated manor of someone annoyed. However, I think she was just too much in her own space to have any grasp of what she was doing.
And later, as she (along with most of the others on the red-eye flight) was asleep, her elbow, under a blanket, had taken residence against my side.
What did I do? I watched the in-flight movie, and waited for landing. Of course I didn't say anything to her. It's not my job to educate the middle-aged on what they should have been taught long before. Writing about it later accomplishes as much as trying to get through to her would have.
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I can't say the woman didn't warn me up front. I just didn't grasp that at the time.
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Hey, at least I got the arm rest on the other side.
Having done a little bit of airline travel myself, as well as having had numerous conversations with fellow business travelers, I have found that there is no generally accepted protocol for determining who gets the middle armrests. I have had the good fortune to travel with my wife (whom I can always sucker an armrest out of), and the bad fortune of traveling in the center seat between 2 fairly sizeable gentlemen whose shoulders extended past their seat boundries and into mine. In the latter case, I could not really fault them from a travel etiquette perspective - the laws of physics would have to be blamed.
ReplyDeleteAll that being said, if this were put to a vote I would side with the middle seat getting both. It's a lame seat - the armrests should be a consolation prize.
I've never flown with a big commercial airline but from I understand it's like the movie Airplane! -- that's if you leave out the laughs and leave in the pain.
ReplyDelete"You're going to hate me."
So what will be your response next time?
Ray
Ray, I imagine next time I'll go straight to: "What do you mean going to?"
ReplyDeleteIf you do ever book a flight, book it early enough that you can select your seat, and not get stuck in the middle.