Viewable Commercial Aircraft Seat Maps

The ability to print up a boarding pass from home and smoke past the ticketing line at the airport was a quantum improvement in the individual's ability to control the variables of commercial airline travel. More and more airlines are accomodating customers with on-line services, including the ability to select your seat based on the layout of the plane. Here, for example, are comprehensive links for seating maps for the aircraft in the fleets of all the major airlines. Strategies for hypercompetitive aircraft seating techniques could fill several posts. Here's Travelocity's aircraft seating resource. And here's SeatGuru.com's website about aircraft seating strategy. If you want to play dirty, here's the site for "Knee Defender," a commercial device that you can cram in the back of the airline seat ahead of you that prevents it from reclining into your personal onboard airspace.

Specific info about the seating map of a given flight is often limited to reservation holders, but Orbitz has introduced a function that enables you to see how many seats have been sold on a flight. This not only enables you to decide if you need to make a purchase decision right away, but it can also signal if there will be a good prospect for seating your family together on a flight (and not just in those un-reclinable seats in front of the bathrooms).