Southwest Airlines doesn’t assign seats. Instead it’s mostly first-come, first-served. Your fare, elite status, and check-in time determine when you board, and you boarding pass is a ‘license to hunt.’ You can take any open seat on the plane.
I’ll always ask the flight’s load at the gate to know how many open seats there will be. As long as the flight isn’t sold out, I’ll angle for one of the empty seats to be next to me. I won’t sit too close to the front, I might take a little time to settle in (my laptop bag might stay in the middle seat a little extra time as I get organized). But I don’t crumple up tissues and put them on the seat (some people do this!) and I don’t outright claim I’m saving the seat for someone else (I’ve seen this, too!).
In each of these schemes the idea is to make the seat next to you unattractive for one reason or another, either because sitting next to you would be disgusting or because it means an awkward interaction – asking you to move or not to ‘save the seat’ for someone else.
One man combines the two approaches, disgusting and awkward, by acting creepy whenever anyone who might sit next to him comes by. Instead of acting like he doesn’t want them sitting next to him, he goes the opposite direction: he is way too eager to have them sit beside him, so much so that almost no stranger would do so if they have nay other option.
The trick is to make eye contact and pat the middle seat to welcome them to snuggle up. This approach has to come across as creepy. Nearly any man can pull it off. Fewer women could.
@mikewdavis
How to keep seats open next to you on a flight 😂
♬ original sound – mikewdavis
So board as early as possible, get a seat with no one next to you, and the next time your flight isn’t full just be… creepy? And on Southwest that pays off in greater comfort.
(HT: Matador Network)
