Airline with most comfortable coach seating
 

We are flying to Rome in November from US. Needless to say we can not afford business class or first class. My husband is 6'6 and would like to select an airline that has the reputation of having more leg room or to get an exit role seat at the time of booking flight. Some airlines you can not get the exit seat until you get to the gate. That will not a problem for the first leg, however the connecting flight may be a problem. Thanks for any information.

Most airlines offer between 31 and 32 inches. Exit rows offer more. When you check-in you will get your boarding passes for all flights unless you switching partners (avoid this) See how much it would cost to upgrade at check-in. British Airways and United offer Economy Plus. You can visit www.seatguru.com to find out which airline offers that one or two extra inches. Perhaps Northwest's newer planes (currently on strike) and Air Canada looked good. I would recommend British Airways economy plus. But you pay extra.

Since your husband is so tall I think BA's economy plus will be money well spent for you. Of course it costs more, but not nearly as much as business class. In addition to extra room, BA still provides free drinks to coach passengers. I'm surprised wally didn't mention that.

Cheers, wally. ((d))

UA doesn't sell it's E+ seating as a separate cabin. You either have to be UA elite, pay a higher fare class, or enroll in an annual membership in order to have access to the seats in the E+ section. E+ offers a couple of inches of extra legroom but the seat itself is the same as regular economy, no leg rests, etc. so I don't think it's worth paying a higher fare class.

Virgin Atlantic and BA have true premium economy products that offer about 6 additional inches of legroom, greater recline, and a slightly wider seat in a separate cabin from regular economy. To me, these products are worth paying extra for. The premium economy seats will only be on your US to London segment. London to Rome will be regular economy.

Midwest Airlines has 33-34" pitch for all seats. The Signature planes have 21" width.

Keith

I was looking at the discusion of the seats and didn't look at the "international" natue of the discusion.

Sorry.

Keith

The other two advantages of flying BA's World Traveller Plus are that: a) such a flight will make you eligible to join BA's Executive Club; and b) more importantly, it seems to me that the odds of getting upgraded from WT+ to Business (Club World) are a lot better than the odds of getting upgraded from Economy to Business on other airlines. I think this is because WT+ is a fairly small cabin, so you're one of a relatively small number of people who might be in the running for an upgrade if the plane is full and they start moving people up from Economy to WT+ (and then from WT+ to Club). Of course, it helps to have status on BA or another Oneworld airline like American. (I've been upgraded on about 40% of my WT+ segments, but I have BA gold card. But two of those upgrades happened just after I started flying BA.)

I've been upgraded three times with BA; twice to Economy Plus and once to Business class. I feel like I've been "downgraded" with the U.S. airlines but never upgraded.