Centre yourself for a better flight

When you are in the middle seat on a plane you are nothing short of the filling in a human sandwich. On some carriers, you are shoehorned so close to these strangers that you end up tickling each other’s arm hairs for the length of a flight.

And the time in a middle seat seems twice as long as in an aisle or a window seat.

Aware that customers would rather share the cargo hold with their checked-in luggage than sit in the middle seat, some people are working on the problem.

Like Colorado-based Molon Labe Designs whose ‘‘side-slip seat’’ is designed so that the middle seat of doom is slightly lower and set back from its neighbours, giving the forsaken a bit more privacy.

But for now you will have to use our handy tips to surviving seating purgatory.

The key is to board early. If you arrive and find the window and aisle seats full you will be the person who took away their communal table space. But if you are in your spot nice and early, and have to get up to let the window person in, you are already one-up psychologically (add an imperceptible sigh for extra guilt, you may need it later).

The unwritten law of plane travel is that the middle seat gets first dibs on the armrest. If you prefer the real estate closest to the seat then go for it and hold firm.

You will encounter some people who are unaware of this rule, but they are also the ones most likely to stick bare feet through the seat at you and are completely irredeemable.

Be organised. The middle seat means your overhead luggage is always a drama away. I tend to favour cargo pants and make sure that all the pockets are full of things to make the trip easier: phone, phone cord, headache tablets, a book, and water.

Remember the middle seat doubles the chance of landing a have-a-chat as a neighbour, so I suggest an eye mask and headphone combo, which is the grown-up version of sticking your fingers in your eyes, jamming shut your eyes and going ‘‘la la la la, this is not happening’’ for the duration of the flight.

Since this is one of the only times, as an adult,

123RF Taking a nap is the only option The middle seat passenger has once the person in the aisle sleep, unless you want to make a very undignified exit.