15-December-2006 : Seat Guru

Web: www.fishfoto.com — E-Mail: fish@fishfoto.com

15-December-2006

I seem to get a lot of e-mails from a lot of photographers regarding a lot of different subjects related to flying.

As I go through a variety of online resources, and tips, and other related material, I think i’ll start with the most common web site I suggest…… Seat Guru , http://www.seatguru.com

Seat Guru is a great basic website for comparing airlines in-flight seats, seat configurations and finding out what seats are good and what seats are not so good on certain aircraft.

The first thing you need to know when you use Seat Guru is what aircraft you will be flying on, this basic information is usually pretty easy, when you book the flight on any online travel agent (Expedia, Orbitz, Travelocity, etc) the booking information will always tell you what plane you are flying on. At times the only information given may be “767” instead of 767-300 (763) or 767-400 (764) if this is the case you should call your airline to clarify what aircraft you are on.

In other cases the aircraft listed may show “777-200” (772) , if you are on a United Airlines (UA) flight this 772 maybe a 777-XP or 777-XC/XI configuration. Many airlines fly one aircraft in many configurations, such as the UA 772. In a more confusing case, Lufthansa (LH) flies the Airbus A340-300 (343) and the Boeing 747-400 (744) each in four different configurations!

If you have to figure out what configuration your aircraft is simply call the airline. The airline is assigning seats from the day the flight opens for sale (usually 330 days from the date of departure) and they must know which configuration they are selling seats for! Call, ask, then go to seat guru, pick your seats and call back with your request.

Seat Guru , http://www.seatguru.com