Originally Posted by spin88

I'm 6'2" and I'll take the ANA "shell" seat on the 77W over E+ on the 747 any day. The ANA seat is 18.1" wide (from memory), the UA 747 seat is 17" wide. Both are 34" pitch. I prefer not having the guy in front recline into me so don't mind the shell seat.

ANA has IFE and power, UA has flaky power (and its not just me, it is not well designed pops out plugs) and flaky streaming. ANA also serves decent food/drink/coffee, United serves Dog food, frat house wine and bud (no heard booze, and what they sell is crud anyway) and vending machine coffee.



A few questions, and a comments:

(1) I don't understand why its 11 hours from SFO and 14 on ANA. Both UA (774) and ANA (77W) serve SFO-NRT. Both are 11 hour flights. ANA does tend to price out higher than UA does (since smart folks don't fly UA in Y) so perhaps you are looking at fares connecting in SEA or LAX? Some further 411 would be useful. I (and others) are looking at your ANA option as being on the 77W, but ANA is flying good ("insperation of Japan") and bad ("JV") configurations. It is almost two very different airlines.

(2) I would highly doubt that you will get decent E+ seats 24 hours before the flight, particularly if you are traveling with one other. What is likely to happen is that you get two middle seats, or are stuck (at best) together in the middle section. United will drop prices until it sells out Y, and the E+ section on the 744 is not large. So I think the UA option - unless you are flying mid-week, non-holiday period - is really at best E+ middle.

(3) ANA will - even as a silver - give you a decent (isle or window) seat.

(4) the 744 flights (and UA long haul in general) tend to cancel a lot, as well as be delayed. If your trip is time sensitive, I would consider ANA for that alone. But then if you have to fly UA to get on your ANA flight, well you loose that advantage.

If you give folks your routings, people here can give you some much better - and more accurate - advise.

Generally though, if you are - as you say - smaller (which I take to mean under say 5'9") then frankly I would take less pitch and the wider 18.1" seat with IFE and better food/drink and service on ANA any day of the week. My wife and kids (two at 5'7" one at 5") were happier on the ANA 31" Regional configuration than on the UA 747 in E+. Me, its cramped.