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While flying at top altitude, Shanna Meit-Sciara loves being in the middle.
But the Brooklynite’s outré obsession with sitting in the oft-maligned middle seat of an airplane row isn’t born out of some quirky need to be the center of attention.
Instead, it’s a preference rooted in coziness.
“As a born and raised New Yorker, I’m very direct. So, in the middle seat, I’m able to claim my territory over the armrests or I’m able to fold my two feet up and onto the seat and get in a really comfortable position,” Shanna, 34, told The Post.
“Being in the middle seat, even on 14 and 15-hour flights, doesn’t bother me at all,” she chimed in. “I like it.”
Although the aisle and window seats each grant globetrotters a meager, albeit added measure of leg room and personal space in the friendly skies, a surprising 28% of US travelers, including Shanna, are more inclined towards the in-between, per a February 2026 report.
But, historically, it’s the seat that a majority of jet-setters dread, due to the cramped confinement and the inaccessibility to either the lavatories or the sky-high sights.
Middle seat mud-slingers online have regaled millions with their “genius” hacks for avoiding the contemptible chair. Others across the internet have used the undesirable accommodation as a relationship litmus test, insisting that if one’s boyfriend “makes you sit in the middle, he doesn’t like you.”
But Staci Sycoff, a tri-state clinical social worker and certified professional life coach, contends that the scorned seat shouldn’t be condemned as a position of punishment.
In fact, she insists that plopping down in the middle can offer a much-needed sense of serenity to flyers who tend to freak out at 30,000 feet.
“Preferring the middle seat can reflect a nervous system that feels calmer with contact and containment,” Sycoff explained to The Post. “Being physically ‘bookended’ on both sides can create a subtle sense of safety and grounding, especially for people who dislike open space or unpredictability.”
“It can [mimic the feeling of being] held on both sides, which can register as security.”
Routinely opting for the spot can, too, be an act of mid-air altruism, adds the authority.
“Taking the least desired seat can feel generous, morally tidy, or identity-affirming in a quiet way,” said Sycoff. “It may tap into a people-pleasing instinct, choosing the least popular seat as a quiet way of accommodating others while feeling virtuous about it.”
Shanna gladly squeezes in the middle anytime she flies, but especially when she’s traveling with wife Gabi Meit-Sciara, 32, who suffers from motion sickness during long-haul flights.
The couple, Big Apple-based travel influencers, cruises the clouds roughly 45 times per year, taking either one long-distance domestic flight or an international jaunt to enviable getaways like Europe, Japan, the Caribbean, New Zealand and beyond once every month.
Gabi calls her wife’s skyway sacrifice a traveling lifesaver.
“It’s super helpful to me that she’s so chill about sitting in the middle,” said Gabi. “For me, being in the aisle or window seat isn’t for comfort; it’s more about my motion sickness. My partner being right next to me in the middle seat is the comfort.”
And Shanna is more than delighted to be of support.
“It’s easier to just take the middle seat instead of sitting apart in different rows, or having a stranger sit between us,” she said. “We don’t want to inconvenience other people, and the middle seat is not an inconvenience to me.”
Buckling up in the not-so-hot spot is neither an inconvenience to Kelly Davis. Rather than a torture zone, the social butterfly considers it her throne.
“I’m the middle seat queen,” Davis, a professional comedian and married mother of four, proudly proclaimed to The Post.
As a touring stand-up comedian, living in Atlanta, the 40-something routinely takes flights all over, including a 15-hour haul from Georgia to Johannesburg, South Africa.
Whenever she’s traveling, she cheerfully transforms those cheaper — sometimes the only spaces available — middle seats into her stratospheric center stage.
“I know how to make uncomfortable things comfortable for myself and everyone around me,” said Davis, better known to her verified social media fans as funny woman “Kelly Kellz.”
“I take that middle seat and I make people feel good during a flight, and I take pride in that,” the pro jokester continued, bragging that she’s turned strangers into dear friends through laughter, tears, high-fives and resting her head on their shoulders (or vice-versa) from the heart of an aircraft’s row.
“I give the people on either side of me permission to get comfortable. Relax, make yourself at home with me,” said Davis. “The more relaxed they are, the better my flying experience.”
Sycoff says congeniality is a common trait among middle seat buffs.
“For some, choosing the middle seat offers built-in connection and reduces social discomfort because interaction feels almost inevitable,” noted the insider. “Some personalities genuinely enjoy built-in proximity, spontaneous conversation, and the cozy, tucked-in feeling of being right in the middle of the action.”
And as a self-crowned airway royal, Davis wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I’m a joy-dealer,” she gushed. “I look forward to making people experience flying as if they’re on my plane.
“I take ownership in the flights from my middle seat throne.”
Read the full article here
