Seats on the Plane

The seats you choose for yourself and your children have about as much to do with how easy the trip is as just about anything else you'll do concerning the flight. Good seats form the base upon which you can apply these tips toward a better trip. Bad seats get you off to a shaky start, and represent another obstacle to surmount on your way toward a nice vacation with the family.

So, if every parent on your plane reads this, will you all be competing for the same seats? Thankfully, no. What makes a choice of seat good or bad varies quite a bit with your own ideas of good/bad, as well as the age of your children and their experience flying.

SeatGuru has online seat maps of for most major U.S. airlines, with comments on which seats are roomiest, which have the best view of the movie and more.

What we'll do in the next few pages is lay out the options so that you can figure out what seats might be best for your family. The most important thing, however, is to make sure you are with us in knowing that you should choose your own seats. Letting someone else do it, especially if that someone else is a busy counter person who does not know your family at all, is not a good start to a great trip.

But first, a digression. When thinking about seats, think about avoiding flights when you can that are likely to be full.

Try and bypass the first flights out of or into major hubs, or flights that businesspeople might overload, such as a late afternoon/early evening “commuter” flight. Fewer passengers on the plane mean more seating options for you and your kids.