Sitting on this "tush cush" in my cramped coach seat made me feel like I was suspended on a cloud.

By Wendy Perrin

The carry-on item that singlehandedly kept me from the brink of insanity on my cross-country flight from Los Angeles two days ago was the self-inflating seat cushion that I recently ordered from travel-supply store Magellans. My legs and butt weren't cramped or sore the way they normally are after five hours in coach on a 737 . . . .

By Wendy Perrin

In response to yesterday's post about how my friend Karen got the best coach seat on a flight from Newark to Dublin by checking in online the morning of the flight, reader Crashbpm has written in with a similar tale.  You may remember Crashbpm, a savvy traveler who was worried about arriving at LAX with no preassigned seat for a flight on Alaska Airlines to Mexico. Crashbpm reports:

"The morning of my flight to Mexico, I went online to view the seat map and print out our boarding passes. We were able to grab great seats and ride to the airport without the stress and anxiety of having no seat assignments. When we arrived at the nightmare that is the Alaska Airlines check-in counter at LAX, we realized we had made the right call. Alaska Airlines has made every check-in station electronic. Because there is no distinction between electronic check-in and lines for passengers who have problems or need to make changes, every line was an hour long."

Many thanks, Crashbpm, for the great advice. Perhaps we should all add this to our New Year's Resolutions:  Check in online the morning of the flight!

By Wendy Perrin

You may recall that we were recently discussing how to nab the best seats on overnight transatlantic flights. All the tactics we discussed involved widebodies.  But what if your airline is so sadistic that the plane has ONLY ONE AISLE?!

This happened to my friend Karen Fricker, a theater critic who lives in Dublin (and who flies within Europe so frequently that I've shared her advice about European low-fare airlines in my column).  Karen had to fly Continental from Newark to Dublin on Saturday night.  It's a route on which Continental has the gall to scrunch people into that sardine can, with one aisle and 3 seats on each side, otherwise known as a 757. Any flight on which a whopping 1/3 of the seats are middle seats requires a strategy. So . . .

By Wendy Perrin

Hooray!  At a time when cabin comfort on most U.S. airlines has plummeted, the best U.S. airline (according to Conde Nast Traveler's Readers' Choice Awards) is actually improving comfort.  By March 2, all 96 of JetBlue's A320 planes will provide each seat in the front 11 rows with 4 extra inches of legroom! This means that rows 1 through 11 will have 36 inches between seatbacks; rows 12 through 25 will have 34 inches.  Most airlines provide only 31 or 32 inches between seatbacks. Add the extra legroom to the comfy leather seats and the individual seatback video screens with 36 channels of live TV, and JetBlue is getting harder and harder to resist.

By Wendy Perrin

A few days ago I shared my overnight-flight strategy of reserving an aisle seat in a center row toward the rear, since the middle seats there tend to fill up last. I promised I'd let you know how it worked.  Alas, it didn't.  My flight last night from JFK to Nice, France, was surprisingly full for low season.  There was not one empty center row to be had -- which means nobody on the plane got to lie down across 3 seats. 

When I checked in with the gate agent shortly before boarding and learned that the two seats next to the one I'd reserved -- seats that were empty 3 days ago -- were now occupied, I asked her to move me to a seat next to an empty middle seat.  Which she did.  I couldn't lie down in 24E, but at least I got extra elbow room.

I'm now recovering at the comfy Hotel Martinez in Cannes.

By Wendy Perrin

In response to yesterday's Getting A Good Coach Seat, Part 2, reader Crashbpm wrote:

"The links you posted on coach seats were very helpful to me. I have been stressing because my wife and I just booked a last-minute trip to Zihuatanejo on Alaska Airlines direct from L.A. and they can't pre-assign seats.  We have no status on Alaska and I am just imagining a three-and-a-half-hour flight in a middle seat in the last row of coach.  My wife will hate me, but I plan to get to the airport three hours in advance to secure two good seats together."

LOVE this response to my Strategy For Getting A Good Coach Seat post.  Reader Crashbpm, who is clearly a savvy frequent traveler, wrote:

"My first strategy for securing a decent coach seat on an international flight:  Don't fly Delta. Delta is one of my least favorite airlines for coach travel. No seatback video, tight leg room, and no ambience. They treat international routes like an extended domestic flight. Air France used to be the pits, but its new upgraded 777s feature seatback video monitors, footrests (essential for not sliding forward when sleeping), and seats that extend forward when you recline. And AF has decent food. 

I used to book seats with an eye towards having an empty seat next to me...or an entire row. But post-9/11, I have yet to get on an international flight with multiple empty seats. Following the strategy you've outlined, you could luck out with an empty seat next to you. OR you could end up in an aisle seat in the middle row at the back of the plane where people line up next to you all night for the bathrooms! If you have to fly Delta for frequent-flier reasons, I say get on an Air France code-share flight. (I do hope your plan works on your trip. It is off-season, so you may have luck!)"   Crashbpm

Crashbpm, I TOTALLY AGREE with what you say.  As regular readers of this blog know, I hate flying Delta.  Believe me, whenever possible I book Delta flights operated by Air France using AF planes . . .

By Wendy Perrin

I'm off to France on Saturday (be sure to check in with me next week, when I'll be blogging daily from Cannes) and have been so swamped that not until 10 minutes ago did I have a moment to check what seat I'd been assigned by the corporate travel agent who booked my ticket: Seat 22B on a Delta 767.  That's an aisle seat in a 2-seat row on a plane whose seating configuration is 2-3-2.  According to the seat map on Delta's site, the adjacent window seat is occupied.  YUCK.  NOT my idea of a tolerable overnight flight!

My strategy on overnight flights is this:  I book an aisle seat in the center row, as far back on the plane as possible (after checking Seatguru to make sure that the seat has no major flaws). The middle seats in those rear center rows get filled last, so booking a seat back there maximizes the chance that I will have an empty seat or even an empty row next to me and will be able to lie down across 3 seats . . . .

By Wendy Perrin

Scott McCartney's excellent column in today's Wall Street Journal, Recliners vs. Uprights: Tighter Seating Puts Passengers at Odds, asks who has the right of way in coach: the passenger who reclines his seat, or the squished traveler sitting behind him?  In most coach seats these days, it's impossible to use your laptop if the passenger in front of you reclines. But, according to an etiquette expert whom McCartney quotes, recliners have the right of way: Says Peggy Post of the Emily Post Institute, "People are entitled to recline."

By Wendy Perrin

In response to my post about how three airlines have pretty much banned coach fliers from using their laptops inflight, reader joe_kayaker wrote:

"When are the airlines going to realize that a power port is not a luxury, but a business necessity??  Look at any departure lounge and you will see folks huddled on the floor just to be next to a wall outlet. The airline that puts power ports in all the coach seats (and their departure lounges) will have a real advantage.  It can't be that there's not enough power on the plane; there are two 90,000-horsepower generators hanging off the wings.  As a business traveler, I'd be happy to pay $5 or $10 per flight to get my coach seat's power port turned on.  Anyone from United listening?  I need my laptop on the flights, and I hate dragging enough batteries to keep it alive for 6 or more hours."

I'm with you, Joe.  I'm one of those people you see sitting on the floor near the closest electrical outlet, massaging a shoulder cramped from lugging 25 pounds of laptop case from airport to airport and hotel to hotel.  But here's my biggest pet peeve about flying in coach with a laptop:  You know when your laptop is open on the tray table, and then the guy in front of you decides to recline his seat, forcing your screen to tilt forward, and the only way to see what's on the screen is to slide your legs forward and slump down into your seat, forcing your tail bone into contortions?  That's why I try to sit in an emergency-exit row where there's more leg room and the seat in front of me can't recline. I've also asked for one of those laptop tray-table stands for my birthday.

As for lugging extra batteries, have you checked with Seatguru in advance to see if the plane you're flying has any power sources in coach?  Of course, even if you can nab one of those seats, the power port may not be functioning.

By Wendy Perrin

Question from reader Barbara of Crestview, Florida:

"I have the Platinum Delta SkyMiles American Express Card and was not aware that it would help me get better seats until I read your April column. Who do I contact for these perks?"

In my April Perrin Report on the fine art of snagging the best seat in economy class, one of my final tips was this:

If you're still stuck with a bad seat and it's a long-haul flight, join the carrier's lounge club for the day.
This gives you access to the club's powerful ticket agents, who can move mountains when it comes to seat assignments. Some airlines, including American, Continental, and Delta, let you pay to use their lounges on the day you fly (prices typically range from $25 to $50). Of course, if you can afford an annual club membership, that's even better. These typically cost $300 to $400, but lately some affordable options have been floating around. I recently received a promotional offer to upgrade my Delta SkyMiles American Express card to a Platinum Delta AmEx. I succumbed for one reason and one reason only: It gives me free membership in Delta's Crown Room Club, which normally costs $300 but which I got for the $80 fee to upgrade the card. As I figure it, that $80 buys me a year's worth of good seat assignments on Continental, Delta, and Northwest: Because those airlines are alliance partners, club members get access to all three carriers' clubs.

So, to answer your question, Barbara, the card itself doesn't get you better seats.  It's membership in the Crown Room Club that can get you better seats on Delta (and, because it lets you use Continental's and Northwest's clubs, on those airlines too). Unfortunately, not everyone who has a Platinum Delta SkyMiles AmEx Card automatically gets Club membership. You get it--for one year--only if you upgraded your card based on a targeted promotional offer promising it.

By Wendy Perrin

Last week I wrote about the latest carry-on ban: laptop batteries. On Virgin Atlantic, Qantas, and Korean Air, you're not allowed to use your laptop unless the battery is removed and the laptop is plugged into a power source.  Since electrical outlets exist pretty much only in premium-class cabins, this means that if you're flying in coach you can't use your laptop!  Why the battery ban?  Certain batteries (which have been recalled) have been overheating and igniting on planes, including on United last Friday at LAX. I've been reading about the ban for the last week at engadget.com.

Yesterday I finally saw this fiasco covered in print, in The Wall Street Journal.  Its article mentioned that the bans "have received little publicity." Why the press isn't paying more attention to this baffles me. I fly in coach, and my laptop is not only how I remain efficient but also how I block out the rest of the world on these otherwise intolerable flights. The prospect of being forbidden to use it on a long plane ride is enough to make my head explode the way the batteries have been doing.

Flying is already enough of a headache.  If the ban spreads to United or other U.S. airlines, and we're still restricted from bringing water onto planes, I'm buying stock in Tylenol. Just this morning I received an email about Tylenol's new GoTabs -- chewable Extra Strength Tylenol tablets that quickly break down without water and have a "spearmint ice" flavor. Once these GoTabs are in stores--the official launch date is October 1--you can be sure they'll be in my carry-on as well.