Southwest Airlines boarding gets a lot of criticism, because instead of having assigned seats their passengers line up based on their ‘boarding number’ and it’s first board, first pick. Some people cheat and board before it’s their turn. Others fake a disability to get on early. And then those who want a free seat next to them try to be as unpleasant a potential seatmate as possible so nobody sits down next to them. My personal favorite technique is placing crumpled up tissues down on the seat next to you.

Underappreciated, though, is the way that passengers boarding later in the process are strategizing whom to sit next to – not just whom to avoid.

• If I’m going to be stuck sitting next to someone for sure, I’d like it to be the smallest person possible.

• Some people are just looking for a passenger they find cute.

If two people sit together on a plane and hit it off, and they wind up together in the end, then it’s an adorable story – like the couple who met on a Southwest Airlines flight, had the pastor from their row officiate at their wedding, and made it all airline-themed.

Credit: Southwest Airlines

Usually, though, it’s just a little bit creepy. But women, knowing men are on the hunt for a more attractive seatmate, are using this knowledge to their advantage in the hunt for seats at the end of boarding.

Got catfished during boarding yesterday

I was in 4D (aisle) with another passenger already in 4F (window) during boarding for what I knew was going to be a pretty full flight – i.e. I expected the middle seat to be taken so I hadn’t put my seatbelt on yet.

A petite woman (5′, 100 lbs or so) asks whether someone was sitting in the middle seat and I said “no – you’re welcome to join us” and I start getting up. She then turns around to her boyfriend/companion (6’2″, 220#) and says “sit here, I’ll go back to this one.”

Sold a total bill of goods on that one.

The seat is open, anyone can sit there, but an attractive woman frequently makes those open seats more available. The crumpled tissues magically disappear. And when it turns out she’s doing the asking for someone else? What are you going to say!

Here’s another one where the Southwest seating preferences seem suspect. A man chose to sit next to a young mother, when the entire row behind her was completely empty?

i noticed that they were in row 7, mom+baby in carrier in aisle seat and grandma in the window. there had to have been at least half the plane empty behind them. full rows, seats at ur heart’s desire! FA’s were encouraging people to space out since the flight was pretty empty. then the man in front of me stops at the row with the 2 women and the baby and asks for their middle seat. the mom holding the baby kinda looked at him like “really?” and the people sitting in the rows around had the same expressions. but he insisted and she ended up asking if he’d be “okay” with the aisle seat so she could at least be next to her mother. HE had the audacity to be like “yeah fine” over an aisle seat in a row he really didn’t need to sit in.

i’d understand if it was a full flight and he wanted to be close to the front but the row behind them was completely empty. it was so strange and i felt bad for the 2 women; the “younger” mom clearly had been stressed and overwhelmed with flying w a newborn and finally seemed settled in their seats until he came along. plus this whole ordeal held up the rest of the boarding.

I’ve had young women that I’ve worked with tell me that when they fly, they often see the men sitting next to them take off their wedding bands. Who they were sitting next to is just happenstance. On almost any airline, you don’t know in advance who will be next to you. But on Southwest Airlines, you actually choose it – new assigned seats coming next year on Southwest of course will stop these practices in their tracks.