GF and I fly long haul roundtrip once or twice per year (usually SoCal to Europe.) Typically, I'm looking at 777s with a 3-4-3 configuration. Usually, I book economy/MCE in the outer sections. I'll take the aisle, give her the window seat and we pray that no one takes the middle seat. But someone usually does end up in that middle seat and then we often swap with them, so that leaves the GF with a middle seat. She's pretty small, but still.

But I've wondered if it might not be better to choose the middle section instead (not middle seat, but middle section. We'd have to get up for others a fewer number of times, and we likely wouldn't have to play the seat swap game.

Your thoughts?