I saw a link on Upgrade: Travel Better to a travel survey that attempts to understand the differences between those who sit in the window and those who sit in the aisle. I’m firmly in the window camp — in fact, I vastly prefer the starboard window to the port window. This is a result of an old injury to my right shoulder, sitting in the starboard window seat means that no-one can accidentally bang my shoulder.
Aside from protecting my bionic shoulder, I like the window because I like looking out the window (especially on evening flights returning home from Redmond — I love watching the sun set from the plane.) The window seat is easier to nap in because I can lean on the window. When I get aisle seats, I’m forever getting whacked in the head by someone who isn’t paying attention with their bag or their coat. I’m even writing this blog post from seat 16F on Virgin America using their in-flight wifi.
For the most part, I match the aisle dweller much better than the window dweller:
- I am married.
- I have given a speech to more than 100 people (and I wonder how big my audience will be at Exchange Connections next week!).
- I habitually check email — it’s a Big Deal if I turn off email sync on my iPhone.
- I view “roughing it” as “staying in hotel that isn’t a very good Westin or W”. I’m not sure that it would be possible to convince me to go camping.
- I have subscriptions to Rolling Stone, Food and Wine, and Wine Spectator.
- I have lots upon lots of books. I’m currently reading Being Geek.
- I’ve voted in every federal, state, and local election since I turned 18 (and filling out my California absentee ballot is on my to-do list for this weekend when I get home from this trip).
- I have Premier status on United, and I’m a member of several other airline programmes (including my current favourite of Virgin America — love them!), and I have elite status with both Starwood and Hyatt hotels.
- I don’t like camping, and I haven’t been on a cruise either. The concept of a cruise mostly isn’t very attractive to me, although I would like to go on an Alaskan cruise.
- Yes, I’ve eaten caviar, and will do so again.
- I have a total of three college degrees, one of which is a MS.
- I can’t stand Ikea. I’ve been in Crate & Barrel lately, but all of their sofas are either tan, a slightly-padded rectangular box of boring, or a sectional (or all of the above), so I’m in the market for a brightly-coloured sofa that has a nice shape, is comfortable, and is emphatically not a sectional.
- I mostly find New Yorkers fine, although I refuse to drive in Manhattan. That’s not really about New Yorkers, though, but rather about being in a city with both useful public transit and lots of cabs everywhere.
- I just got my passport renewed, and am headed to Sydney for the holidays so that it will get its first stamps.
- I have two AmEx cards (one business, one personal).
- I have a well-stocked bar, I have several Riedel glasses for different varietals. On my last trip to Sydney, I brought back four cases of wine after a couple of days visiting wineries in the Hunter Valley. I just finished the last bottle from one of those cases last week.
- I’ve been on the internet since 1993 (and BBSes before that).
So where do I match up with my fellow window-seat lovers? Well, I am female, and I’m 34 so I’m just barely still in the right age range. I use a manual toothbrush. I bake frequently (including peppermint-mocha cupcakes earlier this week). I don’t wear a wristwatch, although I do admit to coveting a co-worker’s Lego watch. The aisle profile is much closer to me, but I avoid the aisle if at all possible.
What about you? Where do you fit into the great window/aisle debate?
Fun article. I linked to it on my FaceBook page.
I’ve learned to choose aisle because there’s less leg room at the window. I’m only 6’1″ which makes me no giant, but long flights at the window are uncomfortable. Now, on the rare occasion when I got upgraded to to First Class, the window seat had plenty of leg room and seemed preferable to the aisle.
Oh, I definitely understand why people who are taller than me want the aisle seats. For me at 5’5″, it’s not nearly as much of a problem.
Let’s see:
Aisle person
43
6’2″
Married
Male
Largest audience was around 500 people.
I tend to be viewed as…Oh, Adobe still says it best: “Colorful and not very shy”
Cufflinks? Me? no.
I’m in IT, I don’t really have a choice about email
I would love to hog the bed. My wife and dog won’t let me.
I like nature, camping is fun, so are overpriced luxury hotels.
I do have a few magazine subs, and gobs of books.
I vote every chance I get
I have never traveled enough to be a premier anything. (Quiet Nadyne, I already know what you were going to say, that’s not on the list.)
I grew up in Miami, going on a cruise was pretty easy. I like smaller boats thought.
No fish eggs, no me gusta mucho!
I don’t actually have anything other than an AS, degree-wise
I hate both IKEA and Crate & Barrel
I have to shower in the morning or I can’t actually wake up.
I love NYC, who wouldn’t?
I have a passport, but it expired some time ago, and never actually used it.
My only AMEX was a corporate one.
I don’t tend to drink much at home, actually never, so booze in my house goes to waste.
I avoid clothes that must be dry-cleaned.
I have in fact visited a winery. Coppola, among a few others, and it was fun.
I wasn’t a terribly early adopter of the internet, stuck with BBS’s until the majority of tech info moved off of them.
I am NOT a fan of TechCrunch, or overplanning.
Favorite Author: Diane Duane.
I like dive watches, they put up with abuse well.
Tatoos: I haven’t seen one I want bad enough to get.
Window. In fact, unless it is a night or sunset flight, I pick the window opposite the sun, so the north side of the aircraft.
I’m a plane sleeper, meaning one of those people who pops in my iPod, puts on chill-out tunes, and zonks out before take-off. I like the window because I never have to be awakened by anyone getting out of the row, plus I can lean on the side of the plane. IF I can’t or don’t want/need to sleep, I can watch the world go by. My favorite flights for this are ones over mountain ranges, Greenland (Europe ->SEA or YVR), and arctic regions.
-chuck