I admit, an aisle seat isn't a bed of roses.

In the first place, you're fair game for the flight attendants, who roam up and down the aisle, waiting for you to start dropping off to sleep so they can run over your foot with the service trolley, or for you to put a drink in your hand so they can bump your elbow (as a right-hander choose a seat on the right hand-side of the plane to avoid this).

There are other problems as well. On a lot of planes there's a metal bar curving in from the aisle under the seat in front of you, the sole purpose of which seems to be to prevent you from fitting your carry-on case underneath.

And it is somewhat of a pain to have to get up to let your seatmates in and out.

All these invconveniences pale, however, before the central inconvenience of the window and middle seats: There's no way to get out without disturbing the person between you and aisle, and, trough some profound law of nature, such persons are invariably the kind that even the most claustrophobic would be hesitant to disturb - e.g., a seven-foot, maniac depressiv in a coma or a 300-pound, arthritic with a heart condition. It isn't until several hours into the flight, when your bladder literally gets too big for your britches, that you're finally able to build up the courage to ask them to let you out. And then they make such martyrs of themselves getting up from their seats, you spend the rest of the trip IN the toilet, so as not to make them get up again to let you back in.

(from the Airline Passenger's Guerilla Handbook, ISBN 0-924022-04-3)

Another hazard of aisle seats - people with big carry ons bumping you with those unwieldly carry ons during the boarding process.

If you're travelling in economy it's best to take a central aisle seat, & do your own 7 foot manic-depressive imitation in the hope that those sitting beside you will choose to get out the other way.

In business it's not as much of a problem.

Also - can anyone tell me why some people seem to believe that their overnight cases on wheels are designed to roll happily down aeroplane aisles? They don't!

FOr me, The aisle seat allows me to stretch
this 6 foot two body of mine out. (In business or first I have the room, just need
the aisle for coach.)

I don't mind getting up for passengers. I'm
generally awake for most flights (between
"homework" and reading and writing my journal.. Can't sleep on planes.)

BaoBab... The aisles are barely big enough
for us to walk down, let alone wheeled luggage. My feet have the bruises from baggage whiplash (people rushing to get off
first) to prove it!!! CATMAN

Yes, Catman, but there's usually at least one person - often a middle-aged woman who has overdressed for a transatlantic flight - who insists on dragging their wheeled luggage down the aisle. This manoeuvre [US=maneuver] invariably ends up damaging the ankles of the people already seated & delaying everyone behind the offender, who keeps stopping to apologise & right their luggage so that they can repeat the episode 3 feet further down the aisle.

Don't these people realise that the handles on the bags are there to be used? Sorry about the rant, but this is one of my pet peeves: if you can't pick your luggage up, pack less!