Judgment Seat

Find the best spot in the cabin with SeatGuru.com
By JO BAKER

For those of you who are sick of getting stuck with a seat by the aircraft toilet (again), there is deliverance in the form of SeatGuru.com -a know-all site that enables you to check the cabin
configuration before you fly, so you can decide in advance which row and seat number to request.

The idea came from Seattle businessman and frequent flier Matthew Daimler. "In 2001, my job required extensive travel between San Francisco and Europe," he says. "I quickly noticed that there were a handful of prime seats and terrible seats in each cabin ... I started to post my observations on the Internet and there was immediate interest." Eight million visitors later and the site is providing seating information for 29 major carriers. SeatGuru.com uses color coding and icons to denote facilities such as laptop power connections and different types of entertainment systems, as well as to rate overall comfort level (based on factors like legroom, reclinability and noise).

We decided to test fly the site for ourselves and found that couples traveling aboard a Singapore Airlines Boeing 747-400 Version 3 can't beat the adjacent seats A and C in rows 61 to 63. These are rare rows of two seats each, with extra storage space between the seats and the window. The guru does warn that the extra gap may get in the way of snoozing against the window pane -- but it sure beats being stuck by that queue for the toilet.

Hello ... I'm on The Plane

By FARHAD HEYDARI

Say goodbye to exorbitant prices charged by airlines for using their satellite phones during a flight. More and more travelers are realizing that technology that works on terra firma is just as good in mid-air. Thanks to the recent boom in onboard broadband wireless Internet access— currently offered by 10 carriers including SAS, Singapore Airlines and Lufthansa— passengers can now simply log onto Skype or other Internet voice services and make encrypted phone calls, all at 12,000 meters. The cost of accessing the Internet is determined by your carrier (Lufthansa, for example, charges $9.95 per hour or $26.95 per flight). After logging on, all that's required is a headset. "I have gone from [up to] $7 a minute [in satellite-phone charges] to a free download and a once-only connection fee," says London media consultant and frequent flier James Forbes. "What's more, all the functions of Skype work, so someone calling my London or New York SkypeIn number can get me over Greenland." With several operators from Austrian Airlines to Air China now scrambling to offer Internet access, the air in an aircraft cabin could soon be as thick with annoying phone conversations as that in any commuter train. But look at it this way: it saves you from having to make small talk with your neighbor.