You paid for that seat. So why can the airline just take it?

A growing problem is leaving passengers stranded in middle seats and without recourse. Here’s how to protect yourself.

Do you have any rights when an airline changes your seat assignment? That’s what Jay Libove wanted to know after he lost his assigned seat on a recent flight from Philadelphia to Barcelona.

His airline changed his plane — and his seat assignment — twice without telling him.

“The last one was the worst,” says Libove, an IT consultant who lives in Barcelona…