Choosing an airline seat

This article is posted on the AARP website.

Choosing a Good Seat on a Plane
Window or aisle? Front or back? How to pick a location that's best for you.
by: Peter Greenberg | from: AARP | July 7, 2010

The best seat on the plane depends on what you're looking for. In real estate, it's about location, location, location. That's true on planes, to some degree. You definitely don't want to be sitting across from the lavatory, with people lining up next to you the entire flight and unpleasant odors wafting your way. The same applies to seats near the galley. And if you're in a hurry, seats on the back of the plane are usually the last to exit.

But there are other factors to consider, such as legroom, width and convenience. Exit row seats generally have the most legroom, but most of these seats do not recline. So be sure to check with the airline first if that is an issue for you.

Many planes also have what are called "magic seats." These are window seats — often behind emergency rows — that have no seat in front of them at all. If you're all about legroom, that's hard to top. Bulkhead seats also have more room, but there's no place to stow your carry-ons, which means they may have to go overhead. Sometimes it's also tough to see the in-flight movie from these seats.

American Airlines generally has the most room in coach, and if you're an Elite member on United, the Economy Plus seats have even more space. JetBlue has certain seats on its Airbus A320s that offer extra legroom for an additional fee.

Check out a handy website called SeatGuru.com, which has diagrams of the seating arrangements for most airlines; it even includes notes on why certain seats are better than others in terms of pitch (the distance between seat backs), recline, width and even which ones have power ports available.

In terms of window seats versus aisle seats, I think window seats are overrated, unless you can actually sleep on the plane. Otherwise, you may feel claustrophobic, and it's a hassle if you need to get up often. The aisle gives you more flexibility; plus, you have an easier time exiting the craft when you land.

My first choice is an aisle seat in an emergency exit row. Where there are two exits rows in succession, I take the second row, because that seat usually reclines.

After that I will take a window seat exit row, again in the second emergency exit row if applicable.

After than it's pretty even as to whether I take the middle seat in emergency exit or an aisle seat elsewhere provided the aisle seat is not close to the lavatory.

Next to last preference is a window seat, with middle seats the last.

The main reason I prefer aisle to window is that there have been too many times when I have been uncomfortably scrunched against the wall by a large person in the middle seat. When such a person is in the middle and I'm on the aisle, I can spill over into the aisle a bit and get some room.

My preference is First Class.

I prefer an aisle seat, unless I'm going to be trying to sleep, then I prefer the window seat.

To find the best seats, check out SeatGuru.com. They have annotated seat maps for all planes on all major airlines.

The airlines seem to think that they know which seats are the most popular (in coach) and have started charging extra for them. Nonetheless, my favorite seat is anything forward of the wing, that the airline doesn't charge me to select... on principle.

I like a window seat as long as it is not over the wing I love to look out while flying and landing.

MichaelColey said:

I prefer an aisle seat, unless I'm going to be trying to sleep, then I prefer the window seat.

Click to expand...

Yeah - if I want to sleep then it's the window seat. But almost all of the time when that's the situation, I'm flying with DW. And when we're flying together she always gets the window.

SeatGuru

Thanks to seatguru, I found pretty good coach seats for our flight to London on an AA 777-200. These are Row 41 CDFG, which are 4 separated seats in the middle behind a row of 5-with armrest tv's, extra underseat storage and a bit more legroom than other coach seats.

If flying coach, I'd chose this row again.

Talent312 said:

The airlines seem to think that they know which seats are the most popular (in coach) and have started charging extra for them. Nonetheless, my favorite seat is anything forward of the wing, that the airline doesn't charge me to select... on principle.

Click to expand...

Fly enough to qualify as an elite on most airlines, and you can reserve any of those better seats. For a lower tier elite that is 25K miles per year. For me, my two annual business trips back to the states get me 20K of that and I usually have some regional business flights that will get me over the 25K. Another good thing about being an elite is the automatic first class upgrades on domestic and intra-Europe flights and the occaisional Op-Up to Business Class on TATL legs. Early boarding, more free luggage allowance, and using the FC line to check-in also help.

When I was an elite with NW, I used to almost always get in early enough to snag a window seat on the bulkhead exit row on the A330s on the TATL legs. Those seats had more leg room than FC. NW's DC-9's and AVRO's, with their large FC cabin meant an almost automatic FC upgrade if you were an elite on the domestic legs. Now with CO, there is nothing like that row on the A330's and there are too many Barbie jets and even worse Q400s so many domestic legs do not even have a FC cabin. The two times I have been on a mainline jet on CO domestic legs since I switched I did get the FC upgrade, so at least I have been lucky there. Oh, for those NW DC-9's and AVRO's! But DL has totally destroyed what NW was.

Prefer the first row of the two exit rows. There actually is a little bit of recline (not full recline), but also a guarantee that you won't have little children behind you (crying, pulling your hair or kicking your seat). Also often the tray tables of exit rows are in the armrest, not the seat back, so you aren't jarred awake by someone slamming down their tray table.

I am also a big fan of exit row seats. But be careful of the window seats in those rows! On some Alaska Air planes they only have about half the padding of regular seats (because they are intended to be used as a "step" to get out the emergency door). I learned this the HARD way (literally!) on a 6 hour cross country flight!

T_R_Oglodyte said:

Yeah - if I want to sleep then it's the window seat. But almost all of the time when that's the situation, I'm flying with DW. And when we're flying together she always gets the window.

Click to expand...

DW sounds like my Commander-In-Chief, I like the window seat to take pictures.

Safety-wise, the closer you sit to an emergency exit, the better survival chance. The magic number is five - five rows away from the closest emergency exit. I just read a cnn article on that.