This page presents legroom and fare information for DIRECT flights to Europe originating from Dulles or Baltimore-Washington International airports. It will help the long-shanked find seats that are more comfortable yet affordable. I am 6'4" and I spent an uncomfortable eight hours in an economy seat with 31 inches of legroom on a summer '96 flight to Europe. There are other pages on the internet that suggest stratagems to follow when one doesn't have enough room. I found these tricks to be unreliable. I will update this once or twice for both the off-peak and peak travel seasons each year. This should be more than sufficient, since while the airlines fiddle with fares all the time, seat spacing is relatively eternal, despite the trivial nature of the work involved in moving seats.
While this web site concentrates on flights out of the Washington, DC, area, it can help transatlantic travelers using other airports. Airlines use a few plane configurations on their long distance flights, so knowing the type of aircraft will tell you the legroom story. I limited my research to direct flights because I can deal with a cramped seat on the final stage. My experience is that the short legs are usually less crowded.
I requested generic economy class fare information for flights leaving in the afternoon on Thursday or Friday, December 12 or 13, returning on January 15, with a 21-day advance purchase. Some airlines had blackouts during this period, so their fares were requested for December 6 departure, returning January 6. The cheapest generic flights are 21-day advance purchase, nonrefundable, midweek departures, max 30-day stay. I asked for 21-day advance purchase Friday departures because that is when I like to take off. These fares are for comparison purposes, and are not meant to be taken as the best possible. Call your travel agent or a consolidator and let them do the work for you, saving you money in the bargain. They have access to seat dimension information in their computerized reservation and data retrieval systems.
Legroom, the distance between the junction of the seat back and seat bottom and the back of the seat ahead, is not uniformly available from the airlines. What they do all offer is seat pitch, which is the distance between a given part of one seat and the same part on the next seat. This measurement is easy to take and hard to fudge. Some airlines gave me a range. Those airlines were assigned the shortest pitch in their range. Some airlines did not have seat pitch available in their systems. For those airlines, I used information from Seats that punish: How the airlines rate in the June 1995 issue of the excellent Consumer Reports Travel Letter. Those airlines are noted with an asterisk.
I included information on Virgin Atlantic's Premium Economy and British Airways' Club World for comparison purposes. These seats are not available under any kind of discount other than those of their airline's frequent flyer plans. Perhaps an airline will try setting up a small section with a little more room at a price a little higher than economy. Virgin is on the right track, but their premium of $800 for 7 more inches makes me plan to fly through Reykjavik, Geneva, or Wiener next time using Icelandic, Swissair, or Austrian Air.
How much would an airline have to charge to recoup the lost revenue of removing a row of seats to make a section with a comfy 39" pitch? The 31" gained by removing one row of three seats would yield four rows with 38.75" pitch. British Airways, Virgin's main competitor, would have to raise the fare $158, from $632 to $790, on their Dulles to London flight. I would gladly pay such a premium, as would plenty of parents with too much baby gear, not to mention frequent travelers who can't afford the $5248 for 50" pitch up in Club World.
|
Destination |
$/inch |
Fare |
Seat pitch |
Duration |
Airline |
Flight # |
Airport | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Amsterdam |
21.32 |
661 |
31 |
7:10 |
777 |
United |
946 |
Dulles |
|
Brussels |
20.66 |
661 |
32 |
7:30 |
767 |
United |
950 |
Dulles |
|
Frankfurt |
25.12 |
829 |
33 |
7:50 |
1011 |
Delta |
60 |
Dulles |
|
Frankfurt |
27.16 |
869 |
32 |
7:40 |
747 |
Lufthansa |
419 |
Dulles |
|
Frankfurt |
22.23 |
689 |
31 |
7:40 |
777 |
United |
916 |
Dulles |
|
Geneva |
17.76 |
604 |
34 |
9:35 |
310 |
Swissair |
117 |
Dulles |
|
London |
104.96 |
5248 |
50 |
6:55 |
767 |
British (C.World) |
194 |
BWI |
|
London |
39.21 |
1490 |
38 |
7:20 |
340 |
Virgin (Prem Eco) |
22 |
Dulles |
|
London |
23.58 |
778 |
33 |
7:30 |
757 |
*Icelandair |
642-450 |
BWI |
|
London |
22.00 |
682 |
31 |
7:20 |
340 |
Virgin |
22 |
Dulles |
|
London |
22.90 |
710 |
31 |
6:55 |
767 |
British |
194 |
BWI |
|
London |
16.19 |
502 |
31 |
6:50 |
777 |
United |
918 |
Dulles |
|
London |
20.39 |
632 |
31 |
7:00 |
747 |
British |
216 |
Dulles |
|
Milan |
26.10 |
809 |
31 |
8:10 |
767 |
United |
970 |
Dulles |
|
Paris |
26.87 |
833 |
31 |
7:15 |
777 |
United |
914 |
Dulles |
|
Paris |
25.68 |
796 |
31 |
7:15 |
340 |
Air France |
29 |
Dulles |
|
Reykjavik |
12.06 |
398 |
33 |
5:00 |
757 |
*Icelandair |
642 |
BWI |
|
Shannon |
17.94 |
610 |
34 |
7:20 |
67 |
*Aeroflot |
318 |
Dulles |
|
Vienna |
19.88 |
676 |
34 |
8:10 |
310 |
Austrian |
516 |
Dulles |
|
Zurich |
16.18 |
550 |
34 |
6:55 |
747 |
Swissair |
129 |
Dulles |
Do you have an experience or comment you would like to share? Drop me a note at
hilesd@mac.com
