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For most of my life, I have been on #TeamWindowSeat – that is, when given the choice between an aisle seat and a window seat, I’d pick window seat 100% of the time.  I think that the main reason is being a map and geography geek, I enjoyed looking out the window and seeing the roads and other geographical features

Flight from Seattle to Salt Lake City

But the other day I was on my way back home from Seattle to Cincinnati (connecting in Salt Lake City).  I was flying Delta in economy and took my window seat as the first one in my row.

Then, my fellow row-mates showed up.  It was a very large man in the middle seat next to me with his quite large wife on the aisle.  I had the arm rest down and I was NOT moving it.  I knew if the armrest went up, significant spillage would occur.  He actually started messing with the armrest at one point but I did not move my arm off of it.  It turned out he was trying to figure out where the button to recline his seat was (it was on the armrest on his other side)

During the flight

And of course, topping this off, the guy in front of me was a seat recliner.  I am on record as supporting everyone’s right to recline (READ: Who owns the airline seat recliner positioning? What would you do …), although I personally do not recline my seat in economy

I really wish that I could have taken a discreet picture of myself, but I wasn’t trying to “passenger-shame”.  I get that this flight was probably not an ideal experience for him either but it was not fun for me either!  I was really crammed in there!  When the flight attendant came by asking if I wanted something to drink, I had to give her a “you’ve got to be kidding me, right?” look.

In any case, after discussion with a few other folks, they recommended when traveling alone, ALWAYS picking the aisle seat if you can, for this exact reason, though there is one way to get both!

What about you?  #TeamAisleSeat or #TeamWindowSeat?

I'd always been on Team Window Seat when traveling on an airplane...until this happened


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