Originally Posted by crhptic

I know what she was TRYING to do, but I don't see how she could have expected it to succeed. After all, if the flight weren't sold out, I could pretty much count on the fact that if we ended up with an empty seat in the row, she WOULD move rather than voluntarily continue to sit in the middle and leave the aisle empty. (And, as the flight filled up, she had every incentive to move sooner, so that SHE didn't get stuck in the middle). Thus, I had nothing to lose by sitting next to her.

The whole tactic just seems to me to be a less-sophisticated and less-likely-to-succeed version of taking a seat and putting your bag/lunch/whatever in the seat next to it.