Episode 14: Figuring Out Which Plane You Will Fly In

In the last episode I kind of went over how you can determine if whatever you're redeeming with points is going to be of value versus just simply buying the actual flight with dollars. But now for many people they're actually always interested in knowing what plane they will actually be flying in.

For the most part, many flights around the world are in narrow body planes (planes with single aisle) ... so for most part, planes across different airlines will have very similar seat set-up (such as 3-3 seating). 

However, with the longer haul flights, it can get quite important to figure out where you will be sitting. This will definitely matter most especially with those long haul flights that are well over six hours perhaps you are going to be on one of those flights that are fourteen hours. That's very long. 

And when you're on those kind of flights the last thing you want to get on is a very old airplane that's run down, doesn't have any entertainment system or let alone flying in coach. Perhaps you would want to redeem those miles on business and first class and really feel super relaxed. Totally understand that. So when I was planning my around the world trip I really did check into what airplane types I would be flying in. And in order to find kind of what your aircraft is, a lot of the airline booking sites will let you know what kind of aircraft it is. 

For the British Airways backside it's a little bit hidden. So you kind of have to just click on the actual airline.  So only a click right here and when it pops up it says the Boeing 777 jet. But American Airlines has a bunch of different versions so how would you know. 

Figuring Out the Aircraft Type and Locating Your Seat

The site that I like too really use is called Seat Guru. It's SeatGuru.com and it's an amazing site with all different types of airlines and the interior cabins. So I'm going to click on American Airlines here on Seat Guru, and then I'm going to click on, below they have the aircraft summaries. So they have a Boeing 777-200 version one version two and a 777-300 E.R. the long range. I would imagine that this would be the 777-300 E.R. Going back to the site it doesn't really specify what it is. 

Another strategy that I like to try is then I will type in the flight number and then go to Flight Aware. So whenever I type it in, it kind of gives you the updated information of the current flight that's actually flying out there as you can see right here. But I'm going to click on the first search result usually flight aware I like their flight trackers and it kind of tells you what plane that they're currently flying in and as you can see it says Boeing 777-200 Twinjet. 

So that narrows it down to version one or version two. Then to determine between version one and two as you move along and booking this flight, it may show you the seat maps. But it doesn't obviously because it's through the British Airways site. So I would have to go to the American Airlines website and then find this flight. Typing DFW to Tokyo one way December seven, search. So we're going to be searching for the flight American Airlines 175. 

Here we go. If we pull out this information. It'll give us more. And there you go. You're able to view available seats. Another trick is when you look at American Airlines that says 772, usually they cut off the last number in the first three digits and then just append on the two from the fourth digit. So 777-200 could also be represented as 772. 777-300 could be represented as 773. But I'm going to click on the View Available Seats, and you can view all the economy seats that are available including Maine's cabin first seats. But a faster way to determine this is actually to click on the business class. It's going to view business class seats. 

So just switch it right here actually you didn't have to go back. Okay now I'm going to count up the number of business class seats on this flights. So there's thirty seven seats lets match that up. And voila Boeing 777-200 version one with thirty seven business seats. A lot faster than counting all the economy seats. So this aircraft has a first class cabin, business class cabin and then economy cabin. Again you can also see what first class seats would be available by simply changing this to first class. Here’s your first class cabins. Quite a bunch left, sixteen flatbed seats. Seat Guru gives you kind of a great overview of the seating details, the pitch bed length, the width of the seat and if it's a flatbed seat or just an angle flat seat. You can hover over the aircraft here and kind of get an idea of kind of any additional comments for the seat area. Notice the proximately close to the lavatories and the galley. A lot of the times people don't like to pick seats that are close to where there is preparing food or where people will walk back and forth between the toilets, so usually the first rows and the last rows end cabin sections are not desirable. Unless you're in coach where being in the front like near the emergency exits you get extra leg room. 

Always check out kind of like where the red seats are because they kind of tell you if there's an entertainment box interference right underneath your seat that might restrict leg room. And then you can also read other people's comments although I just take these comments lightly because the thing is that everyone's flying experience is very different. So I wouldn't take other people's comments too seriously. And then there's other in-flight amenities and overview information that you can read on, and people like to post your pictures which I do find these helpful because sometimes I'm interested in knowing how new the interior cabin is. So this is how you would use Seat Guru to kind of locate flights. 

My Experience Researching First Class Seats with Emirates

And one of the flights that I was always interested in checking out was definitely the Emirates Airline A380 and I'll just pull that out and if anyone else is interested in checking that out.

They have several different versions but I flew with their three class version. And as you can see the entire lower classes in coach and top class is first class in the front and business class in the middle with their standing bar area at the back, and when I was viewing to see which first class seat I was going to pick what I did was I viewed these comments, also viewed additional photos of that cabin and then decided that rows two and three at the window side was definitely the most ideal seat because it's just me by myself versus picking the rows in the middle where you're sharing it with a partner on either side. 

So I hope this video is helpful in determining and finding out which aircraft that you're going to be in and the strategies to find this actual specific one not just the general model of the airplane.

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Do you use Seat Guru to look up a plane's seat configuration?

Just comment and let me know if you guys have any questions that you want me to address.

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If you missed, Episode 13: Finding the Worth of Your Airline Point Redemptions

Next, Episode 15: How to Use Flight Search Aggregators to Find Best Flight Deals

Follow me @hustletoparadise to stay up to date on future episodes of Travel Hacking with Hustle to Paradise.

(Introduction photo courtesy of Suhyeon Choi found on Unsplash)