Finally Got That Empty Middle Seat!

Airplane cabin - Wikimedia Commons

On a recent SWA flight from Dallas, I was pleasantly surprised to have an Empty Middle Seat (EMS) next to me. These days, flights tend to be full, so I had the pleasure of experiencing a few hours of extra leg and elbow room! There's an entire WikiHow webpage on maximizing one's chances of acquiring an EMS on a SWA flight. The odds are higher of this happening on SWA since there are no seating assignments, just the general A, B, and C boarding sequence. Nothing to scoff at since flying today can be quite onerous, so thank goodness for small blessings. And which brings it all back to the inaugural post of this blog!

"I think that I shall never see..."

Tree on a local farm

"A tree against the sky possesses the same interest, the same character, the same expression as the figure of a human."
 --Georges Rouault

A beautiful day to take a picture of a beautiful tree.
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About that empty middle seat, a survey of passengers by a researcher for Boeing and other airlines, found that travelers who enjoyed an empty middle seat, "thought the plane was more on-time, the flight attendants were friendlier and the food tasted better." How about that? It doesn't take much to make people happy. This passenger survey was referenced last year in a WSJ article about travelers' satisfaction. It does, however, note the fact that empty middle seats are becoming rare with airlines under more financial pressure to fill all seats.

Gratitude



Airplane cabin

How much happiness is enough? Maybe about the level you feel when you realize that the middle seat next to you on your flight is empty. Isn't that just about right? It's a feeling not predicated upon greed or excess, just a simple sigh of relief when something nice and unexpected happens. Gratitude would be in order.