Me and my wife have to fly to Orlando on the 17th because we both lost our father last month, but I'm having some problems with my knees and must travel with stretched legs to prevent 3 months of pain.

Have to do it with economy class because of our financial situation, but can anyone advice me where I should sit? And will the onboard crew accept that I have to stretch my legs? I'm worried....

Kind regards,
Peter

You might not find a lot of sympathy, unfortunately, and the crew probably can't help you if the flight is already full or close to it - usually the prized seats are snagged by the frequent flyers with status.

You might want to see how much extra UA will charge you for the economy plus section. There is a fair amount more legroom that will allow you to stretch your legs out if you don't have items under the seat.

I don't know which airline you're flying. Otherwise we could have moved your thread to their forum where the experts of the particular airline could comment on your question. So, for now, I've moved it to Travel Buzz. You can continue to follow the thread there.

Welcome to FlyerTalk.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the bulkhead seats or the emergency exit row. The bulkhead seats are the ones just behind First Class, usually have a wall in front of them instead of more seats.

I don't know if that will give you enough space, but those areas are usually the most possible space available on a plane. (And of course, depending on the size of the aircraft, may be plenty or may be miniscule.)

Sorry for the OP's loss. www.seatguru.com may be of use.

Whether the bulkheads offer more space or not is dependent on the configuration of the aircraft. If anything, a standard UA 757 bulkhead would be less comfortable in either F or Y as there is no cutout.

As for the exit rows, I do not think it is appropriate to ask someone less-than-able-bodied to perform in an emergency, and therefore would not advise such a person to sit there.

The OP needs to stretch his legs (extend them). This is not possible in a bulkhead seat where the wall (bulkhead) extends to the floor. While it's nice to not have anyone reclining into your space, the lack of the ability to extend your legs (especially on a AMS-MCO TATL flight) make this the worst possible seat for the OP.

The "bulkhead" seats on UA 752s are actually exit rows and basically have unrestricted legroom in row 9.

Oop, you're absolutely right. I am thinking of the A320s (but the last time I was upgraded was to row 1 on a 757, which I consider hardly an upgrade at all from 10F).

I flew one time on a SA airways airbus a340. It was like flying in an MRI tube. I like Boeing. The 747 is the Cadillac.

Just get up and visit all the labratories and hang out in the galleys and walk long and strech while you are there and be cordial. Stay out of the way of service carts and flight attendant action, and you should be ok. Witness vacant seats immediate when you board to lie down in (aka 3 across) Pace yourself, Ambien helps while you are seated. I flew from the usa to za (14+ hours) on a few times. Sometimes you can get a big area to lie down in on the floor depending on your seating and aircraft configuration.

Enjoy your flight!

If the plane is not booked solid, it is quite reasonable to request and receive an empty seat between you and your wife so 3 seats across, you may even lay your legs on her part of the way.

Another idea is 'to look the part' i.e. have a walking stick and/or crutches and/or ask for wheel chair service etc. I don't think you are cheating you have a real medical problem. BTW u would lose any chance of emergency exit

My husband and I flew to Edinburgh last month and he was just getting over a back injury. He's over 6 feet tall anyway, and just turned 71. He's not a drama queen about it, but Coach seats are really uncomfortable for him even when his back is OK. The aisle seat gives him some room to stretch and lets him stand up and get the kinks out occasionally. Our trip was short and I was afraid that if he got stuck in a Middle or Window seat he'd never recover.

I called the airline (with which we had no status) and explained the situation. The first time I was given the "they may be able to assign seats at the airport" line. Based on the wisdom of the FT crowd, I called again. This person was more sympathetic and actually hacked into the system and got him aisle seats on all 4 legs of the trip. (She did tell me that Federal law required that if someone showed up with a service animal or a fused leg he'd lose that seat.)

There were a couple of glitches: when we got diverted to CVG on the domestic leg and rebooked, the computer "flushed" our original seat assignments but an angel in the airline club got us in an Exit row again from JFK to EDI. And on the EDI-JFK flight we ended up in rows across from each other. Both his seatmates and mine were traveling together so not willing to switch. But he got his aisle seat and we were happy.

Persistence can pay off. But, as seaskybound pointed out, if you're going for an Exit row, you need to be able to open the Exit in case of an emergency, and you'd need to make it clear that your knee problem wouldn't prevent that.

You could hope for exit row seats, but since they are in high demand, and many airlines hold them for their higher level frequent flyers, it is not something I would count on. Getting an empty seat between you would as mentioned above could also help, but again, not something you can really count on.

BA and Virgin offer premium economy, but generally at a fairly high premium over standard economy. As mentioned earlier, United has the E+ section with around 3-4 extra inches of legroom, you can buy an annual pass for $349, or pay by the flight, which I think would be less than that for a trans-Atlantic round trip. That would probably be your most reliable and cost effective option.