Flying comfortably
When traveling long distances, time is the enemy. You will never know just how long 14 hours is until your’re stuck in a middle seat, in coach on a non-stop flight from Paris to Houston.
Many airlines allow you to pick which seat you want immediately after booking your flight, but how do you make an informed decision? How do you know which seat will give you business class legroom for economy class prices?
Knowing the layout of the plane is crucial which is where a website like seatguru.com comes in very handy.
Seat Guru has the seating maps on planes from every major airline in the world. You simply type in the airline, flight number and the date you are planning on flying and it will pull up the seating map for your particular plane.
As an example, I put in the flight Audrey and I are planning on taking next year on United Airlines flight 89 from Newark to Beijing.
Seat Guru pulls up the seating map of your plane, in this case a United Airlines four-class configured Boeing 777-200.
The seating map has tons of information including how wide the seats are, how much legroom is available on each seat, and how much total pitch is available per seat.
Seeing as how I do not plan on shilling out the several thousands of dollars that it costs to fly First Class or even Business class, I begin reading other people’s reviews of the seats in coach to find the best seat available. When you hover over a seat on the map, information weighing out the pros and cons of each seat is presented.
Seat 31A is an Economy-Plus seat meaning extra legroom, however the site warns that since it’s directly in front of an emergency exit, the seat will only be able to recline slightly if at all.
Seats 20A and 20B look promising.
Although the seats are slightly narrower due to the immovable armrest, and the position of the bulkhead means no floor storage in front of you, the extra legroom is a huge pro for someone with a 6′5 frame like mine and this would definitely be my choice for seats on the 14-hour haul from Newark to Beijing.