Australian airline Virgin Airlines is offering some pretty impressive prizes to passengers who book the middle seats on their flights.
Middle seats are disliked by passengers, because of the lack of arm room, and being seated between two other people. Most flyers preferred to sit in a window or aisle seat.
However, that may be about to change, as Virgin is offering up a range of extravagant prizes for passengers who take the dreaded middle seat on their flights.
Every week between now and April 23 they will be giving away $230,000 of prizes and are offering new things each week for middle seat sitters.
The prizes include a cruise in the Caribbean with Virgin Voyages, including return Premium Economy flights to the USA with United Airlines, flights and tickets to your AFL team’s away games in 2023, flights to Melbourne plus entry to the AFL ‘Before the Bounce’ pre-game lunch, AFL Grand Final seats and a helicopter pub crawl extravaganza, including return flights to Darwin.
According to the airline, a survey found that 62 percent of flyers preferred an aisle seat, while 35 percent opted for the window, and three percent liked the middle seat.
While $230,000 worth of prizes appears to be a very tempting incentive, Virgin airlines CEO Jayne Hrdlicka said that another perk of the middle seat is being able to meet two new people.
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“This goes way back, but I was sitting in a window seat and there was a guy sitting next to me, and it turns out the guy’s name was Kelly Slater,” she told News Corp.
“We had this really interesting conversation because he was coming to Australia to train and compete. Much further down the track I realised he was a hugely successful surfer, but he was a really nice, interesting guy. He was in the early stages of his career and he was pretty daunted by the world of possibilities.”
To be in the running for the prizes, all you need to do is be a Velocity Frequent Flyer member, aged 18 years or older, Fly in any middle seat on a Virgin Australia-operated domestic flight by April 23, 2023 and register your flight on the Virgin app under Middle Seat Lottery tile.
