Sisters reveal ‘creative’ hack to stop passengers from squeezing into middle seat between them
Need a hand with this hack?
Two sisters have revealed the hilarious trick they use to ward off airline passengers from taking the middle seat in their row.
Haley and Tina Dreher were traveling out of San Francisco on a flight operated by Southwest Airlines — which has an open-seating policy — and attempted to deter travelers from squeezing into the middle seat between them by fashioning a sweatshirt and neck pillow over Tina’s arm to look like a person was already there.
“When the cabin crew says the flight is 99% full,” Haley wrote on the viral video posted to TikTok, which scored more than 27 million views.
In the clip, the DIY dummy seemed to be hunched over the tray table and Tina used some amateur ventriloquist skills to make it sound like the middle seat occupant was sick.
Apparently, it “almost worked.”
“They had no assigned seating, so we put our arm through a sweatshirt, using a neck pillow to pretend that our row was full — total joke,” Tina told Storyful.
“We acted as though it was a real person, which had us and our neighbors laughing uncontrollably!”
In the comments, viewers were impressed by Tina’s ventriloquism and championed the women’s creativity.
“I actually thought it was a real person before she turned it around,” admitted one person.
“As a flight attendant for this airline, I laughed and applaud you for your creativity,” wrote someone else.
Other travelers shared their tips and tricks for snagging a row to themselves, too.
“My husband and I do this,” explained one user. “We don’t make eye contact with a soul, and get into a heated discussion until doors close.”
“That’s creative. My friend grabs the barf bag and rocks back and forth,” another viewer commented.