Many airlines allow you to pay for a better seat with a few extra inches of legroom, but what about some extra elbow room? You could pony up for premium economy, which offers wider seats, but those tickets can easily cost 50% to 100% more than standard economy tickets. That leaves most passengers stuck with a tight squeeze. One U.S. airline, however, is offering an option to change that, with a guaranteed empty middle seat next to you in economy class.

The Airbus A321XLR

In July, United Airlines announced a new seating option on its newest aircraft: the Airbus A321XLR. Entering service with the airline in September, this long-range, narrow-body aircraft will be deployed on transatlantic flights that don’t have quite enough demand for a traditional wide-body plane. 

This type of plane opens up a slew of route possibilities for the carrier, and travelers got the first taste of that with a recent announcement of service to 10 new international cities in 2027, which United touts as the “largest expansion in the airline’s history.” The routes launching on the A321XLR are Newark to Luxembourg; Ibiza, Spain; Valencia, Spain; and Marseille, France, along with Washington, D.C., to Toulouse, France.

The plane will be configured with 20 lie-flat business seats, 12 premium-economy seats, and 118 economy seats. Of those economy seats, 34 are designated “Economy Plus,” which offer 3 extra inches of legroom.

Here’s the new part (which United says is the first for a U.S. carrier): One row of seats in the Economy Plus section will have only four passengers, instead of the usual six. In the two middle seats in that row, you’ll find a large, permanently fixed table stretching between the two armrests, allowing you space to spread out a bit more comfortably. (If you’ve ever flown in business class within Europe, you may recognize this configuration with a blocked middle seat.)

Pricing and Availability

The airline hasn’t yet shared what the pricing will be like, but we’ll know more when the seats go on sale later this year. 

Here’s the other piece of bad news: For now, the blocked middle seat will be available only on this specific aircraft — the Airbus A321XLR — which will be limited to a handful of routes for the airline next year. But the carrier has 50 of these planes on order, so expect to see more availability in the coming years. United also said in its press release that it “is exploring offering these types of seats on other aircraft types in the future.”

Interestingly, United is marketing this new option as providing more choice for travelers — who are willing to pay a price, of course — but there may be other factors at play. 

In an interview with The New York Times, Henry Harteveldt, a travel industry analyst for Atmosphere Research, said, “This move is more about United than its customers.” He suggested blocking the seats could be a way for the airline to “operate its A321XLRs with one fewer flight attendant” due to FAA regulations which require one flight attendant for every 50 seats.

Other Options

United’s announcement comes on the heels of another innovation it recently unveiled for economy-class flyers: Relax Row, a row of seats that turns into a couch. That product is already on sale; it will be available on select wide-body Boeing 777 and 787 aircraft starting next year.

But if you’re not looking to book out the entire row and simply want to guarantee an empty middle seat, your options are somewhat limited. Within the U.S., budget carrier Frontier Airlines offers an upgraded seating option called “UpFront Plus” in the first two rows of the cabin that guarantees a window or aisle seat with an empty middle seat and extra legroom.

Some other U.S. airlines allow you to reserve an empty adjacent seat, but the price is effectively the same as booking two seats. Internationally, certain carriers — like Qantas — offer special last-minute pricing to reserve an empty middle seat next to you, but this is subject to availability.