The seat that will stay with the plane when the roof rips off or the hydraulics fail or whatever horrible tragedy I’m certain will happen on the trip.
Gads I hate to fly.
Aisle. Eyes closed. I used to love to fly and I’m not sure what happened.
IvoryTowerDenizen, you weren’t on Aloha Flight 243, were you? Because that’d explain everything.
The aisle. Always.
No, but every tragic accident for some reason gets burned into memory. I used to try to convince myself that flying was totally safe (which I know in my mind it is), but In my heart I was terrified. I finally got on a plane recently by accepting the fact that flying does have risks and I do risky things every day (like driving).
Anyhow- the ripped off roof flight, the lost hydraulics, the plane that flipped and crashed outside Pittsburgh (where I was living at the time) and the one that blew up en route to Paris aare all carried with me.
Bleh.
Let me say this in the nicest way possible. I fly Southwest almost exclusively (virtually all of my flying is up and down the east coast, and hey, they’re cheap), so it’s first-come-first-served once you’re on the plane. My goal is to get a seat where… how shall I say this… no one is overflowing into my seat. The Southwest seats are actually very reasonably sized (width-wise, at least) for anyone within normal weight range - I have no comfort issues at all (male and fairly broad but also fairly fit) being in a middle seat, as long as there is no one especially large next to me. I can ignore screaming children because of the blessing that is the iPod. I am very good at dealing with most other things. I do not take well to people severely invading my personal space, though.
I tend to like to board later rather than earlier (so that many people are already on and I can see how things look). The first target is, of course, middle seats between super-hot twins. After that, next to nice-looking older couples is always a personal favorite… but basically any seat that has two other reasonably-sized people in that row is fine with me.
My worst travel experience ever was a long bus ride to NYC where I had to get on at the origin of the bus route, so I was one of the first ones on the bus. A couple of stops later, an extremely overweight woman took the seat next to me, reeking of smoke and covering several inches of the seats to either side of her. It was not a pleasant six hours of stoic silence.
Window. I love to drink beer usually, but not on planes. What I do like to do is figure out where we are. I can usually deduce it based upon the rivers, hills, shorelines, and interstate highways.
It takes a lot to get me on a plane if I can’t score first class seating. After all those military years and poor years of flying cattle-car, it’s just too damned painful. But if absolutely required, I prefer exit-row aisle. More leg room, better access to the bathroom, and the people in front of you can’t recline their seats. Sweet.
Window, with a view unobscured by a wing.
I like to watch the countryside, but sometimes I like to sleep. A window lets me do that without getting maimed by the damn drink cart.
Gotta be the aisle or I won’t fly (unless the flight is less than an hour). I’m horribly claustrophobic and being pinned against the window, boxed in by two people, is an absolute nightmare for me. Unfortunately, I have to fly a lot for my job. Once I was flying from Frankfurt to Skopje (about 2 1/2 hours) and I got stuck in the window seat. The plane was chock a block full and some jackass had taken my overhead compartment space so I had to put my carryon under the seat in front of me, which eliminated what little leg room there was. The middle seat was occupied by a horrifically smelly man who insisted on sitting with his legs fully spread (why oh why must men do this?? Mr. Happy can’t be that big!) and his leg kept touching mine (I’m not exactly a pixie so there was no way to avoid it), which exacerbated an already horrid situation. I must have looked like hell because the flight attendant kept coming by and asking if I was ok. Ice on my pulse points helped a bit but I swore I’d never be stuck in that situation again.
The pilot’s seat, of course. (Although they never let me, always going on about my lack of a license or training–although I’ve watched lots of movies on how they do it!)
When they don’t let me sit there, I go for a window. I want to see.
Cockpit.
Of course, they don’t let me do that with the airlines, so second choice is window. But as long as I’m not squashed by a Jabba-the-Hut sitting next to me or gagging on lavatory odors I’m actually not that picky.
Window for sure, a few rows back from the wings. I like to watch the land go by, and try and figure out where we are, but I also like to look at the flaps and ailerons and whatnots on the wings to see how they move as the plane moves. I’m more and more interested in planes and flying (I’d love to have the money to learn how to pilot!) and just generally enjoy flying if I can see what’s going on. My husband is a sound engineer for flight simulators, so it’s extra fun now that he can tell me exactly what that particular whine or hum or other sound is.
I’m also one of those crazy people who actually enjoys mild turbulence…
My kids go “wheeeeee” and I smile, sickly, at them and say “yes, isn’t this fun!” while I’m dyin’ on the inside.
What we do for our kids.
I used to always get the aisle for additional legroom, but once I got “status” with United I at worst get “economy plus”, so I swithched to windows.
I have to pay attention to what plane I am flying, because with the smaller commuter planes (two seats on one side, one on the other) I need that aisle seat or I have to cock my head to one side for the entire flight. I once did San Francisco to Spokane in one of those, and I had a stiff neck for a week afterwards. I hate those planes.
I like the window because I can see stuff like this. Sorry for the image size … I could fix it, but I’m lazy.
Me, too! (Also, preferably with no one next to me. Lesser chance of people who want to mess up my fly-groove with incessant yapping–unless they’re really cool and interesting, which has happened to me only once–and I can lie down across the row to sleep if I want.)
Uh-huh! Sigh…perhaps we’ll both get there someday.
Window seat, preferably just behind the wing. Best trip I ever had was flying west over the Appalachians on a cloudless summer night. From the left side window I saw Scorpius, Sagittarius, and the Milky Way so clearly out the window. Beautiful.
Aisle. Most of my current travel is for pleasure. That usually means I’ll have a beer during the flight. Much easier to get to the lav that way. I’ll also take towards the front of the plane.
Is it just me, or do San Franciscans never miss a chance to tell us they live there?
Nice picture, by the way.
Window seat. Mind, I’ve not been in an aisle seat before now (or on a really long flight), but aisle-seating would probably just make the trip seem more like a long-distance bus journey than a plane ride. As others have said, it’s the clouds, the sea, the scenery.