Flying In A Middle Seat

By Author: Steve Robinson
Total Articles: 468
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Although cheap travel deals, including cheap airplane tickets, discount hotel rooms, discount travel packages, and cheap vacation packages often make travel affordable, getting stuck in a middle seat often is no fun.

Sometimes though, you have no choice. Planes are flying full these days and thus many passengers inevitably end up in these seats. The average domestic flight has 50 unfortunate passengers stuck in dreaded middle seats.

The following are suggestions from Smarter Travel how passengers in middle seats can arrive at their destinations with their sanity and comfort intact:

• Use your tray table to take a nap. Roll your jacket into a makeshift pillow. Never place your face directly on a tray table since they are known to be home to plenty of bacteria. If you did not bring a jacket, at least disinfect your tray table before placing you face on it.

• Sleep upright by packing the travel pillow that works best for your body. Some prefer a standard neck pillow while others like a shoulder wrapping Travelrest Pillow, and still others a jacket that converts into a pillow. Blow up travel ...
... pillows are usually preferred because of the limited space they take up in carry-on.

• Buy and bring noise canceling headphones to take your mind off of your limited space and block out distractions.

• Do not be reluctant to claim your space when first sitting down. Make the armrests your own. Most people understand that the middle passenger gets both armrests. Make certain to claim both armrests early so that you do not have to deal with a passenger who does not follow this common courtesy.

• Fully utilize your knee space. Consider using the “Knee Defender” to keep the passenger in front of you from leaning his or her seat backward. Alternatively, politely request this person from leaning back if you need this space.

• Keeping busy is the best way for time to fly by. Watch a movie, read, or play a game.

• Pack an in flight survival kit that includes an eye mask, electronics device such as a tablet, laptop or handheld game console, headphones, book, puzzle book, a sweater or jacket, and snacks.

• Do not be reluctant to ask to be reseated. Just because you were initially assigned a middle seat does not mean that a better seat is necessarily unavailable. Ask at the gate whether there are any available window or aisle seats. Be ready to ask again, if need be, about a better seat location after you have boarded.

• Be smarter the next time you travel by booking early and selecting your seat, when possible, during the booking process. When dealing with airlines that do not allow advanced seat selection, check in for your flight as early as possible, usually 24 hours prior to departure.
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