The Middle Seat Is A Pretty Good Place to Be

I’ll share a couple of observations about my flight to Chicago.

I’m on an early flight to attend training this morning. By paying an extra $25, I got the Earlybird check-in on Southwest. That scored me an A-31 boarding position. That’s an excellent place to be. I quickly found an ideal seat in row 5. My preference has always been seat 7C, an aisle seat on row 7. But that seat was already claimed.

Where is my ideal seat today? It is 5-B, a middle seat. Most folks don’t intentionally choose middle seats. Yet, here I am, the thirty-first passenger to enter the plane, and I chose it. To understand that, you need to know a couple of things. I’m traveling with two carry-ons; a traditional rectangular case and a backpack.

A nice thing about Southwest is all their domestic flights are 737s. The design is standard. Interior seat dimensions are the same in every plane. I can count on the box bag going in the overhead bin. My backpack will fit under any seat in front of me. Many people assume that the space under each seat is the same. Not true! The support gap under the middle seats is wider than the gap under the aisle or window seats. That allows me to stow my backpack and have room for my feet. That’s why position 5-B was ideal. Close to the front of the plane, enough foot and bag room, and legroom. I was high-flying in hog heaven.

I noticed something else. The aisle seat beside me quickly filled, but the window seat remained vacant. I suspect people boarding thought I was saving it for my sweetie. Nope, I’m solo on this business trip. The fight continued to fill. I could see group C passengers coming aboard and straining to see down the plane to find the least worse middle seat, yet my window seat remained empty. Finally, the last passenger boarded and found a seat somewhere behind me.

This interesting. I’ll run the same scenario on the next leg and maybe get an empty seat beside me again. I’ll let you all know how it turns out.

Disclosure: Grammarly.com edited this story.

Copyright 2022 Harold Zeitung All Rights Reserved

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