After flying from Dublin to Philadelphia in a window seat in business class that featured exactly zero window, a thought struck me. Airlines should block the worst seats on the plane from being able to be selected unless the flight is full.

Frequent flyers know some seats have no windows, while others are situated by the toilets and possibly worse. These are usually available for an unsuspecting passenger to select and potentially pay for, which is just not good enough.

Worst Seats On The Plane

There are some contenders for the worst seats on an aeroplane. In my case, it was the American Airlines Boeing 787-8 where row 5 in business class has no window. You can see it on the seat map here, with an excerpt below.


Perhaps even worse is found on the British Airways A320. Densification is the name of the game and those down in the back couple of rows must really be feeling it. Both row 29 and 30 have slimmer seats and no window, as you can see on the complete seating plan here.


I would be pretty upset had I paid for a seat and found myself in a slimmer chair along with no way to see outside. What a waste of money that would be!

Overall Thoughts

Airlines routinely block out their best seats from being selected, saving them for high level frequent flyers. They also do the same with the front seats on many aircraft. This saves a space for people travelling with a baby, as the bassinet positions are located there.

Why don’t they do the same with the worst seats on board? The seats with no windows, no recline, or those right next to a toilet should be blocked until check-in opens. It would probably incentivise people to actually buy a seat, just to avoid being “lucky last”.

What do you think about this idea? What are the worst seats you’ve had the misfortune of sitting in and why? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.

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All seat map excerpts via aeroLOPA.