Originally Posted by
vasantn
- Whether or not "blocked" (there is no official blocking on AA now anyway), any seat in one's ticketed cabin is fair game once the boarding door is closed. Personally, I would not be comfortable with lying about the fact that the seats were unoccupied. YMMV.
I have found the best course is to sit in the middle seat and spread my stuff out a bit when boarding. That way, if the plane is not full to the gills nobody actively wants to sit next to someone, and you already 'own' one of those aisle seats anyway, just in case someone tries to sit in it.
I've done that on a couple of occasions and even the person ticketed in the other aisle has left in search of another seat just before doors closed because they were 'sitting next to someone'.