Hi! This is my first post! Of course no one will give you the stinkeye for sleeping during a flight, but what if you're on a particularly long, and not particularly full flight? Is it polite/ALLOWED to take an entire row of seats, pull up the armrests, steal some of those pillows and blankets that smell like shrimp and make yourself a true lie-flat bed, easily rivaling anything in first class? I have a red-eye flight from Honolulu to Houston in a couple of months, and checking on the seat maps, it looks like 80% of the seats will be empty, and those three empty seats in the middle aisle of the 767 will look awfully tempting. Surely some of you have had experience with this before? Any advice?

Welcome to Flyertalk! ^

Luckily for you, someone posted a similar question:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=627240

You may not be flying UA and the E+ seating, but I think the procedures are the same.

Good luck!

If the flight is empty enough, why not? Wait for the door to close and hop to an empty group of three seats, or even hop over there before with the plan of returning to your originally assigned seat if someone shows up for the row. I've done both, and seen both happen many times.

I agree.^ You can risk it a bit earlier, but once the doors are shut it's usually fair game. I've done it plenty of times and I am never the only one with darting eyes surveying they possibilities. Good luck!

Go for it ^

The trick is in finding a flight that empty.

[an entire row of seats, pull up the armrests, steal some of those pillows and blankets that smell like shrimp and make yourself a true lie-flat bed, easily rivaling anything in first class?
A bit of a stretch, mate!
Ah, well,... I can tell you; several times I've managed to TRY to sleep while spread out in coach in rows of seats of various lengths, but always ended up feeling poked in the ribs with the remnants of a seat-belt protruding from the edge of a seat , cramped under an armrest that rose only so far , or crick-necked because my head was jammed against the aisle-side armrest. In some cases I finally just lay down on the floor, but the FA's would come along and nag when the flight deck wanted everyone to buckle up.
But I've never been so comfortable as in first class on transpacs, where I truly DID manage to sleep, and to arrive in Bangkok able to function--instead of feeling nauseated and jet-lagged for days.
Good luck, though: YMMV

I'm praying that from now to March no one will book a flight from to Honolulu from Houston because I'm going with three other guys, and I figure they'll each want a bed too.

Honestly, who goes to Hawaii for spring break on a Monday?

With how full flights are becoming these days. It's very unlikley you'll manage to snag an entire row.

Even if you do, you'll have to try and guard it from people trying to poach those seats post lift off.

I used to do that all the time. I have not for a while now.

In contrary to the trend of 95-100% full flights, I actually did get an entire row (A,B,C) in E+ on a UA 744 from FRA-IAD earlier this month (12/11/06). Needless to say I was stunned. I did stretch out across the three. There were some things poking me as a previous posted mentioned, but believe me, it was tolerable!

Even though it happened to me, I wouldn't count on having three across to yourself. It is extremely rare!

Best of Luck!

Congradulations. Whenever I'm on a United flight it seems like I'm lucky if I ever even have an empty middle next to me.

The only time in the last few years that I've got anything that represented an empty row was on empty Jet Star Asia flights between Bangalore and Singapore, I flew the route back and forth twice and all 4 times I got a full row (3 seats). I wonder how long they'll last on that route.

I did it as recently as last December from IAH-AMS, but it was more comfortable than BF in my mind. That was because I brought my Therm-a-rest Prolite 3S, which weighs all of 13ozs. and folds up to less than a half gallon carton of milk. That took care of all the protrusions and humps between the seats. A true lie-flat, which BF does not have.

I've done this quite a few times. It's always a nice treat to be on a flight empty enough to do it. Often times the flight attendants will invite passengers to "spread out" once the door is closed... but as others have suggested, it can be helpful to make a strategic move sooner than that (i.e. take the middle seat so neither the window nor aisle look attractive to others). Worst case scenario, you play dumb and move if someone else joins you in the row.

Once, I was even lucky enough to make camp on all four middle seats on an L1011... it was very nice!

I recently got a full row on a very delayed UA flight out of ORD. So did lots of other people, since the flight was only about half full or less.

I tried the lie down and sleep method. Was less comfortable than sitting in the seat to try to sleep. Also, there seemed to be no good way of using the seat belts lying down across the seats.

Back in the days when I still flew in coach (last century), I had a pretty good system going. After I boarded, I would head to the back of the plane and sit in the middle seat of the furthest back empty row. If someone came to sit in the row, I would apologize and move up to the next empty row. I almost always scored a whole row to myself and slept for the rest of the flight.

Fortunately I can sleep easily on flights. It is easier, I must admit, in first or biz.

Now days it seems like the flights are a lot further than they used to be, but if you can snag a whole row for yourself, go for it!