United armrest fees

This week, I’m traveling for work. That means I spent 8+ hours on a plane flying across the country and back. As a kid (and even young adult), I remember thinking work travel was glamorous and hoping I would have to travel for work one day.

It is not glamorous.

Flying in row 33F of a plane was a painful reminder just how not appealing work travel can be, but hey, I’m grateful for the opportunities regardless.

This got me thinking about armrests on planes. I may be a barbarian, but I still don’t know the proper etiquette for surrendering the position to your seatmate vs. taking it for yourself. If anyone has any guidance on this. I’m all ears.

It got me thinking about how airlines could exploit these neutral zones more intentionally. What if there was a feature on apps like United where you could pay a small fee when reserving a flight to claim your armrest?

The trickiest part of a feature like this (other than the immediate customer backlash I forsee) is enforcing it. You can’t have eyes on 30+ rows of travelers at once, and getting people to behave on planes is a chore already. Suffice it to say, I doubt this gets built even though airlines would love to have another angle for monetization.

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