Originally Posted by
snardy
I'm flying solo IAH-SYD in two weeks for a business trip. I currently have selected 6A since I wanted to enjoy the big window and extra legroom in the footwell. However, 6B and 6E are also available; 6E is especially enticing since I won't have to crawl over my seat mate to use the toilet (which is friggin ridiculous on a 17 hour transcon business class seat that costs thousands of dollars).
What would you prefer? Is the engine really that bad/noticeable in rear cabin of business?
My preference is roughly 6D, 1D, 6E, 1E, 6B/K.
It's a pretty personal choice though. Really any of the seats are totally fine.
For the noise: I loathe white noise, but I wear noise cancelling headphones basically from I board the plane until at least immigration if not the hotel. I can arrange my pillow and head just right so I can sleep with them, too. So with that the engine noise in the smaller cabin doesn't make a difference. As someone else said having less people makes it (on average) otherwise quieter.
For other seat preferences:
I like getting up and stretching, so aisles are good. I can easily crawl over the other seat if I'm at the window, but I know I won't, or at least will stress over minimizing any inconvenience to my neighbor. I am tall so the bigger footwell makes a really big difference for me. I take a window seat in row 6 or 1 over an aisle seat elsewhere. From habit I prefer the seats in the left side; I am sure I could rationalize some reason (like the galley light or whatever; but I've gotten used to using a sleep mask so ... shrug).
Though I am sure 90% of my preference is that those seats are familiar. There are so many things that can go wrong, be stressful or annoying when traveling. I am forgetful, have a short attention span and I get stressed in any sort of line or queue.
When traveling for work minimizing surprises and making everything I can as familiar as possible makes that better.
I'll seek out new food, neighborhoods, whatever if I have time between work, but I don't want to use that energy on figuring out how to get comfortable in a seat, or being annoyed or losing sleep from some insignificant inconvenience (hello Lufthansa knee bumping!).
so ... as I said, all the seats are basically totally fine[1], but we all have our particular preferences. :-)
Enjoy your flight, whichever seat you choose!
[1] (maybe except the footwell if you can use the extra seat length)