Economy seats Virgin Atlantic 747 SFO Heathrow

March 23, 2014 2:53 PM

I forgot to pick seats for my flight back and don't have too many options left many of which are these aisle seats. I'm short and normally wouldn't care too much but it is a 10 hour flight. Outgoing I have a window in the section with just 2 seat across but all of those are already full for my return. I've read online reviews but was wondering if anyone could describe how much space the inflight entertainment box takes up on the aisle seats? Seatguru mentions this but I haven't found anything saying about how much space you're losing and where the box is. I've looked for photos but haven't found anything except this and I can't tell if this is actually what seating is like. I'm trying to decide if it's bad enough that I should take a middle seat.
posted by oneear to Travel & Transportation (6 answers total)

I've been on Virgin Atlantic, although only domestically, and the picture you link to is representative. There was a clicker and a keyboard on the back side of the clicker, IIRC.

It shouldn't effect the width of the seat.
posted by China Grover at 3:01 PM on March 23, 2014

Nothing is bad enough to purposely choose a middle seat (on a 10+ hour flight no less!), IMO.
posted by cecic at 3:52 PM on March 23, 2014 [10 favorites]

Best answer: I can't remember what size plane I flew on Virgin, but I was in an aisle seat and fitting my messenger bag underneath was a little tight, but nothing I couldn't work with. Definitely less space than usual. The crappier part was that my seat row's seats didn't recline.
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 6:01 PM on March 23, 2014

I almost always choose an aisle seat, no matter what airline. This is because for long-haul flights I like to get up to stretch my legs once an hour, and you cannot do that from the window. The downside is that I am fairly broad with long legs, so the damn stewardesses will slam into my shoulders and feet with the drink cart.
posted by KokuRyu at 7:34 PM on March 23, 2014

Best answer: Probably too late, but: even the larger versions of these boxes are not so problematic for me, at 6ft, that I'd suffer a middle seat for 10h instead. It doesn't affect the length of the space available for your legs, only the width.
posted by oliverburkeman at 5:55 AM on March 24, 2014

Response by poster: Thank you for all the VA specific advice! I'll stick with my aisle seat for the flight.
posted by oneear at 10:35 AM on March 24, 2014