Originally Posted by
ExplorerWannabe
How the heck are two people choosing the seats they want to occupy "gaming the system"? In most cases, they don't want to sit in the middle seat either. They paid for their tickets and they did so before your hypothetical late traveler. The fact one of them may be willing to move to the middle if someone shows up for the third seat is courtesy, not theft.
1. If they don't want to sit in the middle seat, the way they should manifest that is by staying in their assigned seats. Saying "I don't want to but I will give up this seat I glommed onto and prevented another paying customer from getting" isn't a real consumer preference. It's a rationalization. Especially since:
2. The airline OFFERS an option if you really want 2 people in a 3 seat aisle. You can pay for an EXTRASEAT. What the preference really is, is "I want to trick the airline into giving me something for free that I don't want to pay for". And the airline really doesn't want to reward THAT preference.
3. It's not a courtesy to some passenger that was kept out of that aisle or window seat because it was blocked on the seatmap. That passenger is having his or her seat taken from him or her.
Being "courteous" with something that doesn't belong to a person is not real "courtesy". It's something else.