Except for the fact that the people in the aisle seat will be hit by people as they move about to go to the lavatory, and will often be bumped by the service cart. So be sure to understand this and let them move inward when the service cart moves down the aisle, at a minimum.

It’s not about when you book, but when you check in with some airlines. Again, American (and some others) holds many seats on most of their flights for elite and full-fare customers (those booking the more-expensive-than-first-class refundable economy tickets) and only release them to the general public when the…

This is especially true on earlier flights because airlines will not only try to oversell every flight, but they’ll let other passengers scheduled on later flights standby for an earlier flight. So even if an hour before the flight’s scheduled departure time there are 10 open seats, those will likely all be taken up…

Important to note that most airlines (at least in the US) have a policy of placing seat assignments “under airport control” about 1 hour prior to the scheduled departure time. Not all employees will do this, though, so you may be lucky enough to make this change then.