Originally Posted by SansSerif

If you're not a Medallion, you have the following options (which I do not necessarily encourage nor endorse):

1. Ask the gate agent.
2. Flirt with the gate agent (regardless of gender), and then try 1.
3. Bribe an EC passenger to switch with you.
4. Sneakily switch into an EC seat and hope the flight attendant doesn't notice. Avoid death stares of people already in EC.
5. Hack into Delta's computer system, and assign yourself an EC seat.
5b. If you successfully complete 5, give me Triple Diamond status for life (PM for my Skymiles #; I don't want to post it here).
6. Pray for a flight disruption and that you are auto-assigned to an EC seat.
7. Cause a flight disruption and then try 6.
8. Complain that something is wrong with your assigned seat and ask to be switched to an EC seat.
9. Break your assigned seat and then try 8.
10. Calmly explain to the flight attendant that you are clinically claustrophobic and that sitting in a seat with a lighter blue headrest will create the illusion of a more spacious seat and is thus a medical necessity.

There are others, but I can't think of them right now.