Originally Posted by
corporate-wage-slave
Totally unacceptable behaviour, and the rest of the flight doesn't sound much fun either.
However if your husband was also on the same PNR then you aren't making best use of Theoretical Seating - the system has some code in it that doesn't like window + aisle combinations, where the middle is left empty. Your better bet is to book yourself the two seats together you can best live with, leave either the aisle or window empty, which ever you don't mind losing (windows are more sought after than aisles) and then put the highest status passenger in the middle seat. However if the flight is full, the flight is full.
Yes, that's what I've been doing. I'm the higher status passenger (silver) so have been putting myself in the middle. When I booked window/middle on the exit row, we had someone in the aisle despite there being plenty of empty seats at the back. Hence experimenting with non-exit-row seats, in the hope that the flight wasn't full and we'd get an empty seat next to us - but it was full.
Whenever I sit next to a middle seater I
always allow them the armrest. I thought that was common courtesy. But times have changed since I first started flying; I feel like a criminal if I leave my window shade up on daytime flights, and the rudest passengers (the window nazis and elbow invaders) seem to be the younger ones. Maybe they feel older people shouldn't be allowed on planes...