There is a little-known reason why you should always avoid being booked into seat 11A when you’re booking a flight.
These days, most airlines charge passengers to choose their seats, leading many to simply let the system randomly assign them one. It seems like a money saving tip, after all, everyone on the plane is more or less in the same situation.
Okay, you might not score extra legroom, and you could end up near the bathroom, but how bad can it be?
As it turns out, seat 11A is the worst option on the aircraft
If you’re unlucky enough to get that spot, you’ll find that you’re stuck in the middle of the plane with not even a view.
That’s because this seat isn’t next to a normal window, instead there is just a tiny circular window that you can barely see out of.
But why is that?
According to an expert from Flight Radar 24, “Ryanair’s seat 11A is windowless due to the Boeing 737’s cabin air conditioning system. The air conditioning on modern commercial jets is managed by two ‘packs’ that regulate airflow and temperature throughout the cabin.
“Air from these packs is distributed through ducts built into the aircraft’s sidewalls. One of these ducts is located right next to seat 11A in the Ryanair 737-800 cabin.”
What’s even more insulting is that the person on the other side of row 11 in seat F has got a fantastically placed window, which they can make the most of, so your best view from 11A might be to just look right down the row and out of that distant porthole.
Frankly, the unfortunate souls in 12A and 12F don’t seem to have a great view outside either, but it’s still not quite the blank wall that 11A would give you.
If you want some advance warning of the type of view you’d get from your window seat on the plane, then you can hop onto a site like AeroLOPA which has floorplans of pretty much every airline’s plane. You’ll be able to see how much legroom you get and what sort of window view you might be in for.
So next time you’re selecting a seat, you might want to think twice before accepting 11A.
