Originally Posted by
seawolf
I'm 6 ft. DUS-JFK is survivable but not comfortable. You have to strategically select and verify seats all the way up to check-in cutoff to increase chances of an empty seat next to you. You can change your seat online after check-in up until cut-off which is sometime between 2 hours to 90 minutes to departure.
For example, the long-haul
layout is 2-4-2. The middle section consist of seats D, E, F, and G. If I'm travelling by myself and see a row where seats D is selected and E, F, and G are empty, I will select G which then leaves E and F empty. Unless the flight is full, there is a chance that E and F will remain empty as people don't usually go out of their way to pick middle seats and agents will usually assign them last.
Nothing notable about the coach seat comfort. I'm usually good for about 8 hours in a "normal" coach seat before my butt starts to hurt. That's about how long I felt comfortable on AB.
The pitch does look a bit tight, but not necessarily tighter than what I've seen on other airlines. I'm always slightly surprised by the lack of legroom on most int'l coach aircraft; it's a long way to travel so squished (and god forbid your the person in front of you reclines).
We hit the jackpot in row 47, though. Seemed to be more than 2 inches of extra legroom, and lots of extra arm room on the aisles because our 3 seats were behind 4 seats so there was a natural empty space.
Be careful about trying to leave empty seats next to you. I've had near zero luck on this the past year. The flights are simply too crowded, and some yahoo will usually wind up in the undesirable middle seat next to you. That's why we went for the 3 seat middle row instead of trying to get an empty seat in a 4-seat row. In fact, when we checked our luggage at the counter, we asked if there were any empty seats. The agent checked and said there were 35 empties. She was completely wrong. I think there were 3. A similar thing happened on my eastbound flight on AA. The seat map the day before "showed" the plane 1/3rd empty. It went out completely full. Pax must be slow to get seat assignments, I guess.
I would not worry too much about AB's financial woes. They're not taking it out on the passengers. As long as they operate, you should be fine.