About Best Plane Seats
Why we built this, how we research it, and what stops us cutting corners.
Best Plane Seats exists because SeatGuru shut down in October 2025 and left a genuine gap. We build a free, generated — never hand-drawn or copied — seat map for every cabin configuration we can verify, with honest confidence ratings and plain-English advice on which seat to actually pick. The site is free to use, funded by light advertising rather than a paywall, and every core feature works with no account and no payment.
We are not affiliated with any airline, and we have no access to live seat inventory — no free source for that exists today, and we say so rather than faking it. Where we cannot determine something with confidence, the honest answer is "we don't know yet," not a plausible-looking guess.
What makes our data different
Every seat map is generated, never hand-drawn. One structured configuration record goes in — cabin classes, row ranges, layout codes, galley and lavatory positions — and a complete, seat-by-seat map comes out. That means every seat on an aircraft is treated consistently, rather than an artist's rendering of a handful of "notable" rows.
We show our confidence level honestly, seat map by seat map. A configuration is labelled verified, derived or provisional depending on how directly it was confirmed against a primary source, and every one carries the date it was last checked and a linked list of where the numbers came from — not a vague "sources: various."
We treat the "version lottery" as the central problem, not an edge case. The single biggest thing that damaged trust in seat-map sites before us was presenting one confident answer for an aircraft type that an airline actually flies in two or three different cabin layouts — a retrofit half-finished, aircraft inherited through a merger, a regional variant. We document every version we can find and say plainly what determines which one a given passenger gets.
We never copy anyone else's map. The numbers behind a seat map — pitch in inches, row counts, layout codes like 3-4-3 — are facts, and facts aren't copyrightable. The drawing of them is a different matter. We never trace, scrape or copy artwork or compiled datasets from other seat-map sites; every config is built and redrawn from primary airline and manufacturer sources.
How a seat map actually gets made
We work down a fixed hierarchy of sources and stop once we have a primary one, rather than taking whichever source is easiest to find:
- The airline's own seat map page — cabin classes, row ranges, layout and usually pitch.
- The airline's fleet page — the configuration summary and how many aircraft carry it.
- The airline's own press releases for new cabin products — the marketing name, retrofit timetable and seat supplier.
- The seat manufacturer's own specifications — pitch, width, layout style, whether it's direct-aisle-access.
- Reputable aviation press, for retrofit status and fleet share.
- Encyclopaedic sources, for cross-checking only — never as the sole basis for calling something verified.
The per-seat scores you see — best, good, caution, avoid — start from a rules engine that reasons about real aircraft geometry: distance to a galley or lavatory, exit-row legroom, window alignment against the fuselage, which rows sit over the wing. But a configuration's scores aren't published as verified until a person has actually looked at the unusual ones and either confirmed them or corrected them with a written reason, recorded against their name. Right now that review work is credited to Harry Stevenson. We'll link a fuller profile here once it's ready; until then, take this as the honest, current answer to "who checks this" rather than a placeholder.
We also use AI — specifically Claude Code — to help assemble configuration records from sourced material and draft page copy, working from the source hierarchy above rather than free-inventing anything. It never publishes on its own: every configuration and every unusual seat score still goes through the human review described above before it goes live. We'd rather say this plainly than have you assume it and wonder why we didn't mention it.
How this site makes money, and why it doesn't touch a rating
Best Plane Seats runs on light display advertising, kept deliberately unobtrusive, and every core feature — searching a flight, viewing a full seat map, reading the per-seat advice — works identically whether or not an ad has loaded. We run no paid links, no guest-post arrangements, no directory placements and nothing resembling a private blog network. No advertiser, partner or commercial relationship of any kind is ever allowed to change a seat's rating or where it sits in a "best seats" list — the ratings are the entire reason to trust this site over a plausible-looking spreadsheet, and that stops meaning anything the moment money can move them.
Spotted something wrong?
Tell us and we'll fix it. The fastest way is corrections@bestplaneseats.com with the airline, aircraft and what looks off, or see the contribute page for other ways to help. A wrong seat map is worse than no seat map, so we'd genuinely rather hear about a mistake than have it sit live.
Frequently asked
- Are you affiliated with any airline?
- No. We have no ownership stake in, sponsorship from, or commercial relationship with any airline, and none of our seat ratings or recommendation orders are ever changed by a commercial relationship — that rule has no exceptions, written or otherwise.
- How do you know a seat map is actually correct?
- Every configuration is built from the airline's own published seat map, fleet page or press material, cross-checked against seat-manufacturer specs and aviation press where useful. We record the confidence level honestly — verified, derived or provisional — rather than presenting a guess as a fact.
- What does 'verified', 'derived' and 'provisional' actually mean?
- 'Verified' means every section and row range was confirmed against the airline's own current published material. 'Derived' means the overall configuration is confirmed but some row ranges were worked out from seat counts and layout. 'Provisional' means it's assembled from secondary sources and not yet confirmed against a primary one. We'd rather label something honestly than round it up to verified.
- Why do some aircraft show more than one seat map for the same airline?
- Because airlines genuinely fly more than one cabin layout on the same aircraft type — a retrofit in progress, aircraft inherited through a merger, or a regional versus long-haul variant. Treating that as one config with a single confident answer is the exact mistake that damaged trust in seat-map sites before us. We document every version and show which share of the fleet carries it.
- Who actually checks the individual seat scores?
- A rules engine computes a first-pass score for every seat from real aircraft geometry — cabin features, galleys, exits, window alignment. But a config's scores aren't published as verified until a real person has reviewed the unusual ones and either confirmed or corrected them, and every correction requires a written reason, enforced by the database itself, not just a policy. That review work is credited on the page it applies to once it's done.
- How do you make money, and does it affect the ratings?
- Display advertising, kept deliberately light, and the site works fully with no account and no payment either way. We run no paid links, no guest-post arrangements and no directory placements, and no advertiser has any input into a seat rating or where a seat ranks in a list. If we ever add a booking or affiliate link, it will never change which seat we recommend.
- I spotted something wrong — what do I do?
- Tell us. Every page has a way to flag an issue, or email corrections@bestplaneseats.com directly with the airline, aircraft and what looks off. We would rather hear about it and fix it than have a wrong map sitting live.