"The picture above shows what we all dream about on a long haul flight (other than the upgrade to business)…the illusive spare seat! How do I get one of these you ask???? Well, I have this nifty trick that I use. When I choose my seats I pick a window for myself and an aisle for Randy, leaving the middle seat spare. Now we all know that no one likes the middle seat and we all avoid it like the plague. I have found that 90% of the time, if the flight is not completely full, that middle seat stays empty giving us the space we so crave on the 14 hour journey to LA. In the event that someone is allocated the middle seat I ‘take one for the team’ and move into it so that Randy and I can sit together, all the while making friend for life with the person who thought that he/she was stuck with that awful middle seat. Give it a go next time you fly, you’ve got nothing to lose and space to gain!"
A couple on our last flight tried this. They ended up with a rather rotund individual in the middle who refused to swap seats on the 11 hours flight from Dubai to Oz