Selecting a seat on flights is fraught with danger, for choosing the wrong one could result in hours of discomfort. Some believe exit row seats are far and away the best ones to choose on a flight, and the airlines agree – usually charging a higher price for them.
Everyone seems blinded by the promise of extra legroom, as it seems like a no brainer of epic proportions. I have tried these seats and there are some rather glaring downsides to sitting in some of them.
Exit Row Seats – The Good
Those who go for the extra leg room are correct in their assumption. There is often a great deal more room at the exit compared to other seats in economy class, as this section from a KLM Boeing 737 seating plan shows.
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- You can clearly see the extra room here as this seat map is to scale.
There really is little to complain about here. You get extra room and a briefing from the cabin crew about the operation of the exits as well, which should make you feel special.
Exit Row Seats – The Bad
On some airlines, there is an exit row located right at the front of the cabin. This means plenty of room in front of you at the forward door, as you can see on this Ryanair 737 seat map..
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- All the room in the world for basketballers!
The issue here is that boarding passengers will be in your face at the beginning of the flight, not to mention bumping you with bags, especially in the C seat. The flight attendants will also be eying you during take-off and landing as they sit directly in front of there, though some mind not mind that!
Exit Row Seats – The Ugly
There is a triple whammy for economy class passengers on long-haul flights who select exit row seats. This is illustrated very well by this portion of an American Airlines Boeing 777-300ER seating plan. First, the exit row passengers have no window, which is not uncommon on the large aircraft in these seats.
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- No window for you in row 31. Some airlines have four toilets here – what a party that must be!
Next up, these seats are close to the toilets and it’s never fun having a queue of people standing beside you, plus the door areas on long flights tend to be places where other passengers will appear for an inflight stretch or to burp babies. Not so chill for those sitting there then. Speaking of chill, the final note is that it can be rather draughty there and nobody needs to sit in a cold breeze you can’t turn off for 12 hours, do they?
Overall Thoughts
Exit row seats have the most leg room on board a flight, that is a given. However, you might want to stick to them more on short flights rather than long flights, unless you’re a particularly sound sleeper or don’t mind people encroaching in your space.
For myself, I like the exit seats on short flights as there nothing not to love. On long flights, I’d rather a standard seat as the seat pocket is handy for one. By the way, all the seat map excerpts are from Aerolopa, which do the best online seating plans. They are all to scale and cover a bunch of airlines, which is very nice.
Do you regularly select exit row seats? What are your thoughts on the benefits versus downsides? Any recommendations? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.
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[…] essential if you’re going to enjoy or tolerate your flight. While popular wisdom is that the exit rows are the best seats, is that really the case? I have my favorite seat on the plane and it’s not in the exit row and it’s definitely […]
Overall I appreciate exit row seats. Two other downsides, however. Some exit rows do not recline, which I know is generally not in vogue right now, but I was recently on a United flight that had two exit rows and had I been able to recline it would have not adversely affected the exit row person behind me. The other downside is, yes, exit rows have bigger legroom, but, however tiny the risk, you are also picking up a responsibility in case of emergency. In light of that, shouldn’t exit row seats be at a discount?!
That’s true, I’d forgotten about the non-recline of some of them. I never recline my seats on short-haul flights so it’s not something that is top of mind to me. On your other point, the exit rows do allow you out first in the event of an emergency, so is that worth paying extra for? 🙂 Thanks for the comment!
I am 6’6” and weigh over 400 Lbs. I stopped requesting exit rows after the restriction on a seatbelt extension went into place on exit rows. I also cannot abide by the fixed armrests on most exit rows as they limit the seat width even further. I usually just skip most LCC’s and choose an airline i can go with a economy comfort seat with. Domestically in the US at least I also often pay the incremental upgrade in miles to move my paid ticket in E+ to domestic first whenever possible.
Fair enough. I wasn’t aware of the seatbelt extension restriction in exit rows, so that is good to know. I think you’re right to avoid most of the budget airlines, it’s tight enough for short people and you’re very tall. Thanks for the comment!
I’m tall with long legs, something that most airlines have never been able to figure out so I prefer extra legroom seats. I don’t understand why there would be a draft near exit doors. It’s not like they really leak air. Some airplanes seem to have harder seats on the exit row. The cushion seems to be designed to be stiffer but I don’t know why. I’ve really noticed this on SW 737’s the most over the years. The other reason exit rows can be bad is if the plane isn’t very full. I’d rather sit on a row of… Read more »
Fair point there, the exit rows usually are quite full, as people go for the extra leg room, but it does mean less chance of a seat free beside you. I pretty much live for a free seat next to me, as I don’t really love being that close to someone I don’t know. Not that there’s much choice! Perhaps those exit row seats have a different design around the cushions, maybe so they don’t come off in an emergency situation? I’d be curious to know. Also a good point on the A321. I wonder if more airlines will do… Read more »
I’m 6’4”, broad shouldered, and closer to 300 pounds than I’d like. I always choose an exit row where possible. When I can’t, I get a lot of knee pain from the person ahead of me reclining. I guess it just shows that there are a lot of personal circumstantial modifiers.
I completely understand. I have some quite tall friends and they are the same – they need to have the exit row otherwise they’re contorted something shocking in some of the seats these days. With a population that is getting taller, hopefully one day there will be more roo in economy, like there was when it was first introduced.