Where in the OP is there any indication of bullying?
You are creating your own scenario, then arguing against it.
mmm
This. It’s dickish if there’s a moment during boarding when you’re thinking “ah, here comes our mark!”.
I still don’t understand it? As I said above, if I were middle guy, it wouldn’t bother me the least bit if they told me their strategy, and I’d think they’re idiots for doing it, since now I have choice of seat. Like I said, I would never employ this strategy myself, because I don’t think it’s optimal. I lose the freedom for selecting my seat preferences for the long-shot possibility that the flight isn’t full and a seat remains empty between us.
Why are they idiots? They start with an objective (“maximize probability of having whole row to ourselves”), and they are willing to expose themselves to an increased risk of one of these two adverse outcomes:
-“there is a stranger sitting between us”
-“the seat we surrender to the stranger (window or aisle) might be one we wanted for ourselves”
The people setting up the scenario at the outset (i.e. the strategizing couple) assign their own values to the prize and the risks; they’re not idiots simply because they value these things differently than you would.
So it’s not that the strategy isn’t optimal for achieving the stated goal; it’s simply that their priorities (unshared row) are not the same as yours (first choice in seating preference).
On a not-so-full flight in a dreamily perfect world, you’d find an empty row, and everyone would be happy: you’d have your choice of seats, and the couple would have a row to themselves.
On a full flight in a dreamily perfect world, you’d land in the middle seat of this couple’s aisle, and everyone would fly happy: you’d have your choice of seats, and the couple would be sitting next to each other (unless you’re some kind of masochist who prefers the middle seat).
Seems like a win for everyone, except for the special case pointed out upthread in which a person takes their second-choice seat in another row, not realizing they could have their first-choice seat if they went for the middle seat in the couple’s row.
I don’t see how this strategy harms anyone and thus isn’t dickish. At worst, the person traveling alone is going to get the seat they selected and at best they are going to get a better seat at either the aisle or the window. I’ve done this a couple of times, but my always prefers access to the aisle so she’d rather not risk it and would prefer we choose middle and aisle.
The only caveat: the couple have to be absolutely ok with what the middle seat person prefers, if he wants to remain in the middle there can be no eye rolling, no passive aggression and no spending the flight talking extensively to each other across the guy in the middle.
The only downside (and I voted not dickish) is that I’m a nervous flyer. To combat that I like to choose an aisle seat and be as far front in the plane as I can (it’s just my own weird coping mechanism). Aisle seat trumps being more front.
So, if I could end up picking a farther back aisle seat in order to avoid a middle seat. If the hypothetical couple had chosen a window/middle combo instead, that aisle seat would have been my choice. But since I didn’t know their plan ahead of time I would have picked a less desirable row (farther back) for my preferred seat (aisle).
But that is such a specific scenario that I still think their move wasn’t dickish at all.
I went with “dickish” but this is the mildest form of dickishness imaginable. I’ve done it myself but since it so rarely works, I’ve given up on it.
The problem is that it unfavorably affects the distribution of available seats when people are choosing their seats or flights. If there are some people who will only accept aisle seats or window seats, those people will wrongly concluded there were no aisle or window seats available and perhaps taken another flight instead to their disadvantage.
This strategy could also make the couple worse off (or worse yet, their seatmate). Assume that there are two couples using this strategy on the flight. Couple 1 would prefer the middle and aisle seat if they can’t get all three, whereas Couple 2 would prefer the middle and window. Assume also that there are two other passengers on the flight, one of whom would prefer the window and one who would prefer the aisle. If everyone picked their seats in good faith from the outset, aisle-preferring single passenger would choose to sit next to Couple 2 and window-preferring passenger would choose to sit next to Couple 1. The single passengers get their preference, and the couples each get their second choice, which is the best they could have hoped for. But, if the couples use this minorly dickish strategy, Couple 1 has a 50% chance of getting saddled with aisle-preferring passenger. Then, they either get their third-choice of seating arrangements (making themselves worse off), or they offer only the window seat to aisle preferring passenger, making him worse off.
This negatively affects the seat distributions in other ways. I prefer an aisle or window but I also like to sit near the front of the plane. If I can pick an aisle or window seat, I generally will no matter where it is but if I can’t, I go for the middle seat closest to the front of the plane (avoiding hellish rows adjacent to bathrooms or in front of exit rows). If couples are hiding all of the effectively available aisle or window seats with the slightly dickish booking strategy, I will take a less preferred seat in the back of the plane rather than one of the up front seats. Everyone who shares my booking preference might be similarly disadvantaged.
And the thing is, you’d have to catch it at exactly the right time, too. If you’re that late in checking in that your only options left are middle seats, then chances are that seat would have been taken by somebody that checked in ahead of you, as aisle and window seats are generally more desirable than middle seats.
But that’s just the way airline seats fill up naturally. When I’m traveling solo, if I can’t find a whole row to myself then I pick a window seat in a row where the only other traveler has an aisle seat, in the hopes that the middle seat goes untaken. Does that make me a dick? Of course not. I don’t see how it’s that much different than what goes on in the OP. And, like I said, that middle seat always ends up being filled these days. (And, actually come to think of it, it may be a better strategy even if you can get a whole row to yourself to pick one with one person in the aisle or window, as it’s less likely when the plane starts filling up that a couple books the two adjacent seats. But, once again, this depends on a flight not being full, which is not common these days in my experience.)
Like I said, it’s not a strategy I would use myself because – for me – it’s suboptimal most of the time, and I wouldn’t care if, as middle seat, I found out the couple’s strategy for getting a desirable seating outcome (as I win out in the end, anyway), but if it’s so damned important, check in earlier!
The only thing driving others away is the undesirability of the middle seat. It’s the exact same motivation that causes the hypothetical couple to book the aisle and window. As far as I can tell, the only one being dickish in this instance is the airline, for booking seats nobody wants. They could design their seating layout without requiring saps to sit in the crappy seat (by having an aisle for every two seats, for example), but they want to maximize revenue at the expense of passenger comfort. It’s the same reason they have small, narrow, uncomfortable seats that only recline 3.2 degrees and offer zero legroom. In economy class at least, there really is no desirable seat. Only awful seats and slightly less awful seats.
If commercial planes weren’t cattle cars, sitting in the middle seat wouldn’t be an issue. Since they are cattle cars, sitting in the middle seat is going to be an issue whether hypothetical couple employs the OP’s strategy or not. There’s only upside for the hypothetical third wheel, who, after thinking he was going to sit in the crap seat the whole time, happily discovers he gets a choice of any three seats in the row when he boards. I don’t see how their strategy causes a worse outcome for anyone. And for the life of me, I can’t see how any “rules” are broken, bent or countered in any way. I voted “not dickish”.
Seems fine to me. Middle seats are the least desirable so two independent people picking seats in that row would be situated the same but without me getting to pick a better spot. The worst case scenario to me is sitting in the seat I purchased. Best case is a minor upgrade and getting to pick my choice between window and aisle. Unlike the previous “dickishness” threads about grocery checkout lines, there’s no unhappy surprises for me here; I go to the airport expecting to be in my middle seat.
Why do you care? If it wasn’t for him blocking others from a seat, you wouldn’t be sitting now.
Also, he could have been a morbidly obese guy that took up two spaces. In that case you couldn’t ask him to make room and wouldn’t have a seat.
That’s what a lot of the “aren’t you happy you don’t have to sit in the middle seat?” and “the couple could have been two strangers booking separately” arguments sound like to me.
Waiting for someone to tell me that the subway analogy isn’t perfect.
Subways don’t have reserved seating. And people don’t stand on airplanes.
It is somewhat as if the couple is on Southwest, got on early and chose the window and aisle seats, and the piled their crap in the middle to discourage anyone from sitting there. But if the flight is full that won’t work, and if someone wants to sit there anyhow they can’t stop the person from doing so.
But if you have a reserved seat no amount of spreading is going to keep you out of it.
That took longer than I thought. Yeah, analogies are frequently imperfect. But it works well enough. People don’t pay to board planes and stand, but that’s irrelevant to the use of the analogy.
That’s an entirely different kind of flying, altogether.
A single traveler would have probably wanted to book the window or aisle seat. So if the single traveler wants to be in that row and the window and aisle are taken, they would have to settle for booking a middle seat. Otherwise the single traveler’s seating decision might move away from that row entirely. So yeah a little chaos-inducing and a little dickish IMO. But only a little. The emptier the flight the less dickish it is.
If you have a reserved seat, you take that seat. If the people around it try to keep you from taking that seat, you call a flight attendant. If they still refuse, they no doubt will get kicked off the plane - and they you have the row to yourself.
Kind of different from the subway, yes?
And remember, the ploy is to give you an aisle or window seat. Also not like the subway.
When the couple booked the seats, they no doubt had no idea of how crowded the flight would be. It couldn’t have been that crowded when they booked because they got two good seats together.
If some clown wants only one of 4 seats on the airplane, in a preferred row, he has no one to blame but himself for getting a middle seat. No to mention that unless he was the very first person to book a middle seat, even if the couple had booked two seats next to each other someone in one of the other middle seats would have probably grabbed the now empty window or aisle seat first.
Really, if airplanes are filled with people so anal that they’d change planes because of not getting their desired row, maybe I had better drive in the future.
Kind of irrelevant to the similarities that I found in the subway analogy and airline scenario, yes?
And remember, the ploy is similar to the subway scenario in the regards of the specific points I addressed.
A little ironic that you’re the person that tried to explain something to me in post 39 that is very obvious from my previous posts that I understand quite well. The ploy is not give one an aisle or window seat; it’s to have no one else sitting in their row. That could cause someone to be in a worse situation then just having a middle seat elsewhere which I already mentioned.
Having you not by the ticket in their row (go away) is analogous to the intent of the manspreader on the subway (go away).
Straw man. There is no “clown” blaming anyone and what’s being discussed isn’t just regarding preferred rows. We’re discussing whether or not a move is dickish and not if the second party is to blame for getting a middle seat. He’s of course not to blame if that’s all that’s left and he had to make plans that didn’t allow planning far in advance.
It’s not a matter of how it affects a specific person, that “someone else” you mention matters too.
Control-z din’t say anything about changing planes, he said :
Otherwise the single traveler’s seating decision might move away from that row entirely.
I mentioned that possibility earlier, but only one possibility, and not necessarily because they’re anal. That’s not a likely reason, so yeah, straw man.
I hope they like farting.
The only way I can see it potentially causing a problem for anyone is that it could make it difficult for someone to choose seats if they’re travelling with children or disabled adults. If there aren’t any right next to each other then seats just across the aisle would usually be fine, but the person booking won’t know that the people sitting either side of them are already prepared to swap seats.
Doubt it’d come up that often though, or be completely unsolvable, so I’d still say it’s not a dick move. People do it on trains all the time too.