Plane simple? You'll be shocked at who gets BOTH the armrests if you're sat in the middle on an airplane

Virgin Radio

21 Sep 2021, 14:52

No one wants the middle seat. Ever. There's awkward arm-grazing, touching of strange skin and worst of all the battle as to who gets custody of the armrests. Wonder no more. The middle armrest row is over and you won't believe who's won the air space.

Speaking on the Confessions on the Fly podcast with host LJ Salerno, cabin crew member Boris Millan says: "They did a lot of research in the UK for some reason about this - when you sit in the middle seat, you get to have..."

LJ adds: "You get both armrests!" Boris agrees: "It's common sense, guys. It's common sense."

However, Dealchecker's Travel Expert, Rosie Panter tells Cosmopolitan: "It’s universally accepted that the middle seat passenger has drawn the short straw, so they should get the luxury of both armrests.

"The aisle seat passenger has the freedom to stretch their legs and get up and down as and when they please, while the window seat passenger has the luxury of looking out of the window or curling up to rest their head on the side of the plane to enjoy some shut eye without the risk of passengers needing to clamber over them while they sleep."

Behaviour expert Judi James tells Sun Online Travel it's about ownership. She says: “Space is something that humans and animals fight wars over – it’s the most inflammatory thing.

"It’s why people whose garden wall is half a centimetre to the right can fight with their neighbours for years. We can’t avoid being territorial.

“We even adopt personal ownership of things that really don’t belong to us, like our chair in the office, or our seat on a plane. It brings out the warrior in us.”

And it's all about confidence, she says: “If you are forced into not using your arm and have to bring your elbows in towards your body, you feel physically smaller.

"This in turn makes you feel as though you’ve been lowered and submissive, and no one likes to be locked into a place of submission by a stranger.

“But if you have elbows on both arms of the chair, away from your body, you feel in control.”

To elbow or not to elbow. That is the question...