Travel Dispatch: Are Middle Seats … Good?
Plus: Who gets the armrests? A flight attendant’s etiquette ruling.
Travel Dispatch
February 4, 2026

If there’s one thing everyone can agree on, it’s that being sandwiched between two strangers on a flight is the pits. Right?

It turns out that even the middle seat has its fans. “It’s like a midair cuddle that you don’t deserve, but you are privileged to have,” wrote one of its defenders in a TikTok post.

Read these takes on surviving the middle seat — including a flight attendant’s ruling on who gets the armrests — for the next time you land in seat B.

An illustration shows the interior of an airplane cabin with three passengers sharing a row. On the left, in the window seat, a man in a white shirt is holding his arms above his head as if he were riding a roller coaster as the plane encounters turbulence. In the middle seat, a smiling man with red hair wears an eye shade and is swaddled in a cozy blanket. In the aisle seat, a woman wearing a pink shirt is happily enjoying a dish of airplane food. In the background, other passengers have scared looks on their faces.

Jeremy Nguyen

Who loves turbulence, airplane food and the middle seat? They do. →

An illustration of a woman in a red flight attendant’s uniform sitting atop a globe on a teacher’s desk. On the desk are also books and a jar of pencils and a ruler. The flight attendant is pointing to a blackboard behind her, with chalk drawings of someone sitting correctly in an airplane seat (legs together, marked a check), and incorrectly (legs spread, marked with a cross).

Hannah Agosta

What is proper middle-seat etiquette? A flight attendant weighs in. →

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