dilby

Hi all -

I'm about to go with my wife to Australia for christmas from London, and am curious what people's techniques are for seat booking. I'm conscious that as it's the holiday season, the flight is likely to be rammed, and while I usually pre-book the better seats, this trip was booked pretty last minute to me and only standard seats are left.

Do many people when travelling as a group of 2, book the window and aisle seat? I've heard this done quite a bit, with the theory that someone may not be seated between you and if they are, then you all just reshuffle as that will be in everyone's best interests.

Alternative might be simply choosing two end seats on a middle section, as you won't get disturbed or disturb anyone due to being a bank of 4 (Emirates A380).

Interested to hear people's tactics / stories!

timfountain

Buy the middle seat, problem solved, and yes, that's our SOP for long flights with the SO....

celle

Flights from the UK to Australia and reverse are likely to be very full, especially around Christmas time.

If you book the aisle and window seats, it's most unlikely that the middle seat will remain empty.

My husband and I regularly fly NZ to UK and back. In Economy, with a 3-4-3 seat configuration, we book either D and E or F and G in the middle block. That way, we only have to climb over each other and we don 't have anyone else climbing over us.
We take turns at having the aisle seat.

pinniped

When we're almost certain a flight will be full (as a holiday flight to Oz almost certainly will be), we usually book aisle-aisle across from each other.

Assuming there is no 2-side, of course. We assume any attempt at an empty middle will fail, so we snag 2 aisles if we can get 'em.

Bogwoppit

We book window and aisle all the time. Sometimes someone sits in the middle, sometimes they do not. Do not play seat roulette unless you are prepared to sit in the seat you chose, some people actually like middle seats, weird but true.

Hubby and I are more than capable of ignoring each other for 7 hours, but for a flight to AUS we probably would go aisle aisle.

Proudelitist

Lots of folks try this, but honestly it's in vain these days. At least in the US most flights are fully booked all of the time. Not sure about the UK. It may still work.

What ends up happening is that the middle will certainly get occupied. You can either offer a window or aisle to the person and sit beside your spouse or you can ignore it, and make sure you don't talk across the pax in the middle.

Tchiowa

And the middle usually gets occupied by a 350 pound man who hasn't bathed in a week and wants the middle seat so that he can spread into the seats on both sides of him.

TommyD2

If there isn't a two-seat option (i.e. a window-aisle combination) we generally do aisle-aisle as we both prefer an aisle seat.

If the only option available was the three-seat option we would take aisle-window and a) hope we get lucky and if not) let the middle person choose the seat they want. Luckily for us this scenario has not yet occurred.

Giggleswick

And some people who don't particularly like the middle may really dislike only the aisle (e.g., because they may get jostled or if there's an IFE box there) or only the window (e.g., because the plane's curvature can affect legroom or underseat storage), so don't assume that you can unilaterally decide whether you'll end up with aisle-middle or window-middle.

Kevin AA

Exactly. If you want to switch seats, you can't order a stranger where to sit.

lhrsfo

This technique has worked quite well for me in the past, probably four out of ten times. The look of relief on the face of the holder of the middle seat is something to behold when you propose the swap.

ft101

Selfish people do.

LondonElite

How does this work? Whose name is the middle seat in?

Doc Savage

"Extraseat Smith" is the format I've seen referenced.

LondonElite

That's not going to work on a LHR-xxx-SYD flight unless pre-arranged with the airline. (And probably be more expensive than just booking two Y+ seats.)