286/365 - legroom

I had my fair share of air travel in the past couple years, especially short-haul flights within Europe. Most of the time, these flights were operated by discount airlines, where you don't have a booked seat, seats are allocated on a first come first served basis. These airlines make good money on selling priority boarding for the the uninformed.

 

I have long lengs. Very long legs. Therefore I always aim for seats next to the emergency exits as there's substantially more legroom than anywhere else on the plane. For long years, I fought very hard to get in front of the queue when they call you to the boarding gate, so I can grab one of those dozen seats.

 

But one day, to my utter horror, I arrived late and I was the last person to board the plane but to my surprise, half of those seats were empty. And next time, when I boarded deliberately at the end, there still were free seats. Wow!

 

So what's the conclusion? It doesn't make sense to queue. Stay put until the last moments, then board the plane. There's a fat chance that there'd be a nice, free emergency-exit seat. And if not? You have to sit in a normal seat but you still managed to avoid queuing for 20-odd minutes prior to boarding.

 

Yes, you guessed right, I was lucky again, I'm sitting with my legs stretched pretty far out. Feels great. Hello Budapest!

 

09/10/14

Done