Originally Posted by docbert

By the time I got to the airport there was nothing better available.

However after boarding was completed the 3 seats in the center next to my aisle seat were all empty - presumably a no-show as they had been showing as taken earlier. Tech staff moved another passenger to one of them (presumably due to a broken seat elsewhere given it was the tech staff that did it and not the FA's), and I happily grabbed another, so at least I went from aisle-with-someone-in-the-middle to aisle-with-a-free-seat-next-to-me.