There’s no rest in this heated controversy.
A United Airlines flight attendant is leaning in to the debate over one of air travel’s most ambiguous conundrums: Who, in rows with three seats, is properly entitled to the two middle armrests from takeoff to touchdown?
A flight attendant “made an announcement right after boarding to clarify who gets to use which armrest on the flight,” a United passenger posted on Reddit last week. “To my surprise, he was very emphatic that no person gets two armrests.”
“He explained every person is supposed to use the armrest on their right (and the left for the other side) and keep the armrest on the aisle clear for carts and people walking down the plane. He emphatically stated that no armrest drama would be tolerated,” the Redditor continued.
Still, was this valiant effort a be-all and end-all to a ferocious, perennial dispute embedded in the fabric of commercial flying? Experts have long been divided on this matter.
“Let’s face it, this may not ever be a win-win situation,” life etiquette expert Juliet Mitchell told the Huffington Post in 2021.
“If you are fortunate enough to have the window seat, you can look out on the lovely clouds and monitor the landing. If you get the aisle, you may be able to stretch out a bit, or at the very least, you can get up and stretch without disturbing others,” she continued before declaring, “The middle seat person is stuck in the middle. So give the middle person a break and let that person be the decision maker with armrests.”
Fellow etiquette expert Thomas Farley doubled down, telling Forbes in January that “the middle seat has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. It’s torture.”
He took the sentiment a step further. Farley said, “The middle-seat passenger should graciously ask the armrest takers if they wouldn’t mind relinquishing the armrest.”
“Should one or both be unwilling to do so, they should at least be willing to share it with you,” he added. “Forfeiting both armrests in silence makes a middle-seat passenger even more uncomfortable and, typically, resentful.”
Not everyone is so explicitly generous, however.
Others, like travel expert Chris Elliott, say that passengers face a mile-high jungle and it’s survival of the fittest.
“The idea that anything on the plane belongs to anyone is absurd. It’s a shared space, including your seat, the space in front of you, next to you. Anyone who says that the armrest belongs to anyone is blowing smoke,” he told CBS MoneyWatch last year.
“Even the space in your seat, sometimes you find people spilling over into your seat if you are seated next to someone bigger. You may not be able to use the entire seat and airlines are very unsympathetic to that. So I wouldn’t even say the seat belongs to you, it’s all a negotiation.”
