Originally Posted by
LuvTravellin
1. Lufthansa - I'm not keen on this because of the seat layouts 2-2-2. I think it's better for couples, and I don't want to climb over anybody or them over me. A321 and A346.
2. Swiss - can have a single seat. This has a very early departure at 5.20am from TLV, so not really keen on this either, but can cope if Swiss is a great experience. Not sure of the aircraft.
3. Codeshare on United with Swiss (or may be Lufthansa I'm not sure). Can have a single seat I think. Not sure of the aircraft.
4. Austrian - can have a single seat. A321 and 76W.
1: if you take one of the "middles" then you won't need to climb over anyone (note that the A321 is just normal economy seating with blocked middle in "business").
2: Indeed you can get single seats on the sides, but be aware that Swiss charge 200 CHF to book a "throne" seat (at least for the ZRH-EWR/JFK section). These become free at checkin, but they may be gone by then. Similar to Lufthansa there are "middles" with direct aisle access, but they're more private. TLV-ZRH might also be real business class (A340/777), but might end up on an A321 like the other airlines.
3: United do codeshare with both LX and LH: they're operating different aircraft on differnet routes: on ZRH-EWR, they're operating the "High-J" 767 with new Polaris seats starting this December. It has a lot of good "single" window seats (just search the internet for reviews of the new Polaris 767). If you fly FRA-EWR or MUC-EWR you might end up with older business seats which are likely to all be worse than Lufthansa seats when it comes to privacy - equally, they're upgrading a lot of their planes, so you might be able to get the new Polaris seats. But beware: I think food is worse on United, and service can vary.
4: Never flown Austrian, can't give any useful advice...