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In The Back Of The Plane, Not All Cattle Are Equal

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By MICHELLE HIGGINS, The New York Times

Published: November 25, 2007

Flying in coach doesn't have to be a horrific experience. Really. You just have to pay more.

Increasing numbers of airlines have begun to offer slightly better seating in the back of the plane for passengers willing to pay the extra $15 or $100 to sit there. You may not get a seat that's as plush or as spacious as one in business or first class, but it will still be a step up from the cattle-car experience of standard coach.

"In the past, airlines looked at coach as just one thing," said Chris McGinnis, editor of the Expedia Travel Trendwatch. "A coach seat is a coach seat is a coach seat. But in recent years, they've come to the conclusion that some coach seats are better than others."

Thus, Virgin America, which started flying in August, charges $15 for a bulkhead seat on short-haul flights, such as San Francisco to Las Vegas, and $25 for longer flights, such as New York to Los Angeles. Northwest charges $15 to reserve some of its better seats on domestic flights, such as those in the exit rows. Air Tran sells exit row seats for an extra $20 each way. No-frills Spirit Airlines has what it calls Big Front Seats that cost upward of $30 extra per one-way flight and give you as much as six extra inches of room over a standard seat, and the once strictly egalitarian Southwest Airlines now allows those who have higher-priced tickets (mostly business travelers who book at the last minute) advance boarding and the option to choose the best seats.

A better option is to book one of the so-called premium economy seats, a feature inaugurated by Virgin Atlantic in 1992 and now offered in some form by a number of airlines, including United. Called Economy Plus by United, the program features at least 36 seats on each flight that offer up to five extra inches of seat pitch (the distance between your seat and the one in front of you) over the standard coach seat.

There's a catch, though: If you're not a high-ranking frequent flier, you have to pay a membership fee of $349 a year to qualify, and then it is available only first-come, first-served. (The airline says that on some flights, if premium seats are available, regular passengers may be offered the chance to upgrade, either online or at airport kiosks when they check in, for $25 or $30 one way.)

Premium economy is more commonly found on foreign carriers and is often an excellent option for those dreaded long hauls overseas.

For instance, starting next month, all six of Virgin's flights between London's Heathrow Airport and New York will feature 62 new premium economy seats with 38 inches of legroom (compared with 31 in coach), lumbar support in seat backs that inflate and deflate at the touch of a button, meal service on china with stainless-steel cutlery, fresh fruit any time during the flight and a predeparture glass of champagne. The lowest round-trip economy fare for a flight in early December from Newark, N.J., to Heathrow was $588 in a recent search at www.virgin-atlantic.com. A premium economy class seat cost $1,428; business class or "Upper Class," $8,371.

Other airlines that offer seating in a kind of middle ground between coach and business are Scandinavian Airlines, Air New Zealand, All Nippon, BMI and British Airways, with Qantas planning to do so in April.

But even if you fly standard coach, picking the right airline to fly and - most important - doing seat research before you book your ticket can go a long way toward making your flight a more comfortable one. One of the best tools for this is www .seatguru.com, on which you can find practically every plane flown by most major airlines with a detailed map of the cabin showing which seats are best and which are to be avoided. Here, based on advice gleaned from that Web site as well as Seatexpert.com and Skytrax, a research firm that ranks airline quality, are recommendations of which airlines to fly on two routes:

New York to Paris: Take the Air France flight out of Newark, which uses an Airbus 330, with its 2-4-2 coach configuration. Not only are your chances of getting stuck in a middle seat reduced, but the 32 inches of seat pitch and 18 inches of seat width are also among the roomiest on offer. (And you get French cooking.) Avoid Continental's one-aisle 757, which has three seats on each side on that same route and a Scrooge-like 31 inches of seat pitch, 17.2 inches of width and a one-in-three chance of being stuck in a middle seat.

Miami to London: Five airlines sell tickets on this nonstop route on a regular basis: British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, American and Singapore and Continental (the last two on a code share with Virgin). Here is where the seatguru chart can come in handy. British Airways seems to offer slightly less room than the others (a pitch of 31 inches versus 32 by its competitors), yet the configuration of this 747-400 plane offers only up to six of what seatguru defines as "poor" seats in coach, compared with 16 or so for American and 11 for Virgin, on their Boeing 777 and Airbus A340-600, respectively. But if in-flight entertainment matters, then Virgin might be your choice, with individual TV screens at each seat and video on demand rolling out across the fleet.

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