Originally Posted by
frugal_flyer
I don't care how much more room the exit row has, I personally would never choose a middle seat under any circumstances, given the situation you described. I am the same height as you FWIW. While I am absolutely an aisle guy, I would take a regular window over the exit row middle in this case. Over 5 hours is a long time to be stuck between 2 people in my opinion..
Let us know what you decide.
I keep my procrastinating checking in which means the exit rows might be gone by the time I decide. I text two friends that fly often and they had the opposite view that they would rather have the exit middle row (and of them is about my height).
One benefit of the exit row that I just thought of is that if there are empty rows near me, flight attendant would probably let me downgrade to those seats where I couldn't switch to middle exit row bc that's an "upgrade."