Who should get the armrest in the middle seat on a plane?

Air travel used to be the height of glamour.

Even if you were seated in economy class, the experience was special. (And smoky, but we don't miss that).

In those days, they also didn't have the dreaded middle seat.

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But today's aircrafts are designed to fit in as many people as possible in order to maximise profit margins, meaning seats in coach are in rows of three.

Which means that someone has to sit in the spot in the middle. Not surprisingly, it's seen as the worst seat: You don't have a window, you don't have the aisle, you are trapped between two strangers 40,000 feet about the earth. And worse, you don't know which armrest is yours.

Flight attendants often get caught in the middle of arguments about this, but many have theories on how to solve the problem.

One flight attendant Debbie Ferm says:" "I think the person on each side has an entire armrest to themselves, so they are obligated to follow the lead of the person in the middle seat."

Others think you should share the armrest, one person uses the front, and the other uses the back. But what if your arms touch?

Perhaps the answer is to just use common sense. If someone needs the armrest, let them use it. Or maybe airlines should just start assigning the armrests like they do the seats. Another way for Ryanair to charge passengers, perhaps?