Originally Posted by
TheBOSman
Almost all of my upcoming 737 flights (I have none through ORD, all BOS-DFW and BOS-LAX and reverse of both) have switched to the row 8 MCE seat map. I'm still staying in the exit row, until the gate anyway, in case of an equipment change. I would prefer the open middle to the extra legroom as a general rule, but getting stuck in 16 or 17 with someone next to me, when I could avoid it with ease, prevents me from changing out of the exit rows for those either, again, at least not until the gate.
I spoke with a friend of mine who has done a lot of flying with the "new" seat map, and he told me that most of the flights actually did
not have MCE equipped; it would seem they are changing the maps to the one most generous to avoid having to bump people out of seats or rows that don't exist, but not marketing the seats as MCE yet since many 738s don't yet have it fitted. My suggestion to everyone at this point is that the seat map is not a good indicator of whether you'll have MCE for the moment, which will of course change when more MCE-fitted 738s see service.