A United Airlines passenger flying from Los Angeles to Chicago O’Hare found himself with an empty middle seat beside his window seat, pulled down the tray of the middle seat while inflight and whipped out a second laptop – working on both of them. Another passenger wonders if he bought himself a second seat planning to do this for work – it’s actually more width than flying first class, “I think I found myself more impressed than annoyed.”

But why would he be annoyed at all? When you luck into an empty middle seat, it’s fully available for use between the passenger at the window and the one at the aisle.

This is a new one…
byu/NationalIngenuity420 inunitedairlines

Working on the plane is a flex. But doing it from a Southwest Airlines middle seat, not even the infinite legroom exit row seat, doesn’t say you’re important. You may be busy, but unless you’re using the photo as part of your work why are you even taking this photo? I thought you were working!

The airplane, like the coffee shop, is one of those locations where white collar workers like to pull out their company laptop and stare at a screen for a few hours to signal to everyone around them that they are doing important work while actually accomplishing nothing https://t.co/rAKkuxoQY8

— Tony (@tonyzentelis) March 12, 2024

Last year I wrote about a Delta Air Lines passenger working while standing in his coach seat, turning the seat into a standing desk. That’s a great hack, it’s great for the back, though it can annoy your neighbors and may not turn out well in turbulence. It’s the move of a dedicated, upwardly mobile junior executive or consultant.

Indian tech billionaire Bhavin Turakhia choose American Airlines first class because of its “swivel seat” on the Boeing 777-300ER for long haul. That lets him set up his “rig” for working inflight with “laptop stand…keyboard, mouse, screen, power bank.” American Airlines endorsed the setup.

The man behind payment processing and buy now, pay later service Zeta wants to boost his productivity inflight, not travel light.

He brings a second computer screen, attaching to his laptop magnetically and connected via USB. Turakhia says it takes him just 30 seconds to get his inflight office set up and he claims a benefit of a 40% producitivty boost on a long haul flight. With this aircraft and seat he doesn’t even need to dismantle the electronic office for meals.

Latest airplane travel rig … laptop stand, (no levitation involved), keyboard, mouse, screen, power bank. And the @AmericanAir swivel seat 🙂 pic.twitter.com/IXKY4MsVPe

— Bhavin Turakhia (@bhavintu) November 29, 2023

On the other hand this is inflight productivity move of a true boss: bring all of your emails printed out onto the plane for some uninterrupted work time.

Older guy in front of me on a JSX flight is reading a stack of printed out emails.

He has the vibe of one of those old coots @iononrecourse talks about.

Zero F’s given.

— Kevin Dahlstrom (@Camp4) March 3, 2023

The most successful person I’ve ever met has his emails printed out by his assistant. If he’s asked to approve something, he initials his approval on the paper and the assistant scans it and emails it back. He doesn’t waste time on an inbox, or care about things like ‘inbox zero’.

Many years ago I would keep a paper file of ‘long reads’ I’d printed out and bring it with me on flights. Then a little over 20 years ago I started emailing things to myself that I could fully download and read on my blackberry inflight. That way I was less encumbered. The introduction of inflight internet 15 years ago changed my life.

Paper is no longer my style, but I’ve also never been able to leverage myself effectively with an assistant. Years ago when I first shared an assistant at work, they somehow stopped being my assistant. I never used their help, I wouldn’t even relinquish booking of my travel.

Inflight internet was truly a game changer for me. Flying during the week, during the day, I found working inflight to actually be relaxing on a portfolio basis, across my day. That’s because, pre-internet, I’d get off a cross-country flight with a deluge of unanswered urgent emails. That was stressful! It didn’t matter how ‘relaxing’ a flight was, that self-indulgence was quickly wiped out by the need to catch up.

On a plane my laptop is almost always open. I’m writing, keeping up with emails, head buried in Excel. I sort of feel guilty watching shows, and only do it when I’m too tired to work effectively or in the middle of the night on long haul flights.

I don’t do it for show. I do it because I always have a lot to do, and I’d rather get it done during quiet alone time than need to get work done when I’m with my daughter.

And so I care about two things more than anything else when I travel: the space to open my laptop, and a strong internet connection in the sky. I need at least extra legroom, so that nobody is reclining into my screen. And I cannot fly United domestically – too many of their planes still have unusable wifi.

I am sure to have a laptop with enough juice to last through the majority of my flights, but I still need seat power too. That means Southwest is out for anything more than three hours. Even their newest interiors only feature USB power.

My current laptop doesn’t have a touch screen. For awhile I used a Lenovo Yoga convertible tablet. I only used the tablet and the touch screen during takeoffs and landings to get a few extra minutes, but the keyboard was too annoying and I wound up watching shows during that time. It didn’t really make me more productive, so I went back to an X1 Carbon.

Skip the cocktails, and I’m almost happy that the first class meals are usually bad – the trays take up space where my laptop goes and it always takes too long for trays to be cleared when I’m done.

If it’s the start of a day, I crank out the day’s work before I land. And if it’s the end of the day, I’m more than caught up on everything I need to do that piled up during meetings. There’s nothing better for work than starting and ending the day in the air.