The One Thing Missing From Your Perfect Flight Booking – The Right Plane

When booking a flight with your miles, I used to think that I would just pick the best airline and thus, I paid no attention to which plane I would be on.

And it’s not that there isn’t a huge difference between airlines, in addition to that, there’s also a huge difference between some airplane set ups.

For example, we flew Thai Airways Business Class on a 747 and while the seats on the 747 completely flatten out, the angle was 45 degrees. It was very hard for me to sleep because I kept sliding out of my seat and into the aisle (since we were on the front row).

But if we had flown Thai Airways Business Class on an Airbus A380, we would have had completely lie flat beds. No angle.

This may sound like the ultimate case of first world problems. “I was sliding out of my lie flat business class bed, poor me”. But my point isn’t to complain about my awesome travel experience.

Instead my point is that if you are paying for business class, you might as well pick seats that will let you sleep. Similarly, Carrie and I have picked economy seats where the seating is 2-5-2. That to say, we got to sit alone together.

So let’s nerd out for one minute and talk about planes.

Note: I’ll be referencing SeatGuru.com a lot, as it can tell you everything you need to know!

Planes

There are two big airplane companies. AirBus and Boeing.

Boeing has the 747, which is a massive double decker plane. They also have the 777. The 777-300 series is extremely long, and the 777-200 is similar. These are their main longhauls, although you sometimes see the 767 thrown in on flights that aren’t massively long.

Airbus has the A380 (the “A” stands for “Airbus”) which is an enormous double decker plane. You know it when you see it. And it’s newer. Just for reference, the first A380 flight was in 2005, and the first 777 flight was in 1994. The first 747 flight was 1969!

Because this plane is new and giant, it has the best longhaul seats, handsdown. Airbus also has an A330 that does some longhauls, but it’s not nearly as big.

Figuring out what plane you’re booking

If you’re booking on the phone ask. If online it should say in the flight description.

Figuring out the best seat

Economy:

Honestly, there aren’t huge differences in economy from plane to plane. But still, in general I prefer foreign airlines. If I got to choose between an Asian airline like Cathay Pacific or American Airlines I would 100% for sure choose Cathay. Better food, better service, better experience.

SeatGuru does tell you a “seats pitch”. This is how far away one seat is from that same point on the seat one row ahead.

I also look at the format of the seats. For instance with AA’s 777 planes, you have 2-5-2 like I said, which is better for a couple. At least we prefer it.  If you’re not sure what I mean by 2-5-2, that’s the arrangement of seat groups, separated by aisles.

Business Class:

There can be a huge difference even on the same airline between business class products. And generally, the bigger and the newer the plane the better.

But if you have a few options just google image search the name of the airline and the class you want. Even do the specific plane. For instance google “Singapore Airlines 777 Business Class” and you’ll get a good idea of what’s going on.

In my opinion, the biggest priority with business class is having a lieflat bed.

To find this, head over to seatguru.com again. Browse airlines and select the Airline you want, and then the plane model. Generally speaking, the different seating versions between the same type of plane are slight. But still try to pick the right type of plane.

To the right of the plane you’ll see the seating details as shown in the picture. This is an example of Asiana Airlines, which is a great airline but their business class doesn’t have a lie flat bed, instead they have angle-flat seats.

No angle!

Thai and Asiana also have recliner seats. These are worse! These are also inadequate. If you have the option in your route, always find “flat bed seats”.

First Class:

All international First Class seats should have flat bed seats, so you may one-up your value by finding “suites”.

Here’s an image from Malaysia Airlines’ A380. Generally “suites” are found on A380s as they are newer and bigger. Suites can be found on Cathay, Qantas, Lufthansa and more.

However, I’ve noticed that they don’t list Thai’s First Class on the A380s as a suite even though it kind of is. Right?

Pictures

Another feature of SeatGuru is the submitted photos. On the right side a little lower down on a plane’s page you can see photos. Often you can see the business class or first class for a particular plane and see how spacious or flat the seat/bed may be. Just use the captions to know what seat you’re looking at.

Conclusion

I always google or use seatguru to find any business class seat I book. If I’m paying extra for business class, I want a lie flat, and want to sleep well. But it would be a much longer post to go over every airline product. Instead, I want to give the basics of what to look for. And for me the lie flat bed = sleep.

If you have any experience or advice with picking better seats, please comment below! Especially if you advice for picking planes with better economy seats, as there are more people flying economy and it’s harder to tell the difference. By seat pitch?