padawanflyer

Just wondering if anyone has employed this strategy when travelling as a pair with spouse/child/other in Y in a 3x3 or 3x3x3 seat arrangement aircraft.

Strategy is to book aisle and window seat, and hope no one sits between you, so the two of you have more room. The theory being, given a choice, most travellers would never pick a middle seat between two occupied seats, but may pick an aisle/window beside 2 full seats. Obviously if the flight sells out or gets close to full, someone *will* be stuck between you, but in that case you simply offer to swap their middle with either the aisle or window so that you can be together with your spouse/child/other. Sounds like everyone wins

The only possible problem is the case where the middle seat person simply refuses to swap. I can't for the life of me figure out why someone prefer that arrangement, but I'm just wondering:

a) if anyone else has tried this and had any success, and
b) if there is some realistic potential downfall or reason not to try this that I'm missing.

Thanks in advance!

RZR

no downfall to your approach.

It's a strategy used by many.

Orcair

As part of a family of 4 I am quite used to it - totally agree with your strategy.

However, as the flight planner I will go out of my way to find Embraer/CRJ/319/767/330/777 flights as all of them have 2-2 configurations in at least some areas (the 319 opens at check-in only!).

lcohen999

As a family of 5, we always do this

3+2 and leave a middle out

Someone must have a VERY specific reason for not wanting to move out of a middle seat

YOWgary

My wife and I have used this for years.

Actually, I've always thought this would be a decent revenue stream for airlines, I know there are a few that do it as an elite perk already.

Basically, at Economy or PE seat selection you'd be offered the option to spend another small amount, let's say $5 or $10. In return, the airline removes the middle seat beside you from the available seat map, and promises not to fill it unless the plane is 100% full. In other words, they'd commit to filling those seats dead last.

Presumably, seats would be "de-listed" in this manner such that the first person to pay for the service (months in advance) would be the last one to have their adjacent seat released.

Essentially, you'd be betting against the airline's load factor.

flyquiet

No downfall to the OP, but I hate when people do that because I have not been on any flight with more than a seat or two empty in I can't recall how long.

Meanwhile, when I select my seat, I end up way at the back because there is nothing but middles, when it turns out that 3/4 of the rows are couples, or worse, families of four, trying to hedge the bets and get the empty middles and it ain't gonna be empty when the plane pushes back.

I don't want to select a forward middle seat because with my luck, I would pick the row with two strangers in aisle and window, but I really hate being back by the toilets just because 100 infrequent travellers read this "trick" in a newspaper a travel column and think they'll score an empty seat for elbow room.

If you can possibly find out how full the flight typically is, you could save this trick for flights that have a chance of having empty seats, and it would be very much appreciated by people like me.

morpat

Works best if you choose preferred seats, avoiding row 12 and 13. Also have had good odds at the back of the bus, as everyone and their mothers wants to be the first person off.

eigenvector

You also have to consider the cannibalization of other revenue streams, though. Airlines have a vested interest in making regular economy seating as uncomfortable as possible to encourage you to buy up to E+ or PE. No couple is going to pay 2x$50 for preferred seat when they can pay $10 for a likely-blocked middle (aka Euro business class), so the cost of this service would have to be pretty high to make it worth it for the airline.

rankourabu

Always XOX with 2 people flying together, and noone has ever refused

canadiancow

I suggested this to my dad and his friend.

They ended up with a 10 year old between them. He never asked to move, so they kept it that way.

mapleg

They could have asked the 10 year old if he would like a nice window seat.

YOWgary

How many infrequent flyers do you really expect to try to find out how full the flight is?

jerryhung

Family of 4

Didn't work out too well on my JFK-AUH flight, 100% sold
Thanks to 2 nice gentlemen we were able to get at least 3+1 aisle together instead of 2 rows of X0X/X0X

So I decided to avoid the issue by changing to 4 seats together on return AUH-JFK instead of X0X
guess what, flight is 70% sold? the 1 guy in front of us had all 4-seater row to himself
Sucks eh ... X0X would've given me 2 empty rows on that flight

Oh well, can't win them all

DrunkCargo

http://www.virgin-atlantic.com/gb/en...seat-plus.html

edinv

Tried this last year on a BDA/YYZ on a latitude fare, reserved 12D and 12F hoping that 12E would remain vacant. It didn't happen on the day. The flight in Y was full and 12E was occupied!
As myself and co-traveller were on 'B' fares we were entitled to complimentary offerings from the 'AC Cafe' 12E was not. The FAs were clearly aware of this situation and perhaps this may have caused confusion or irritation if an unofficial change of seats had actually taken place.

48 hours prior to departure flight was showing full!