For my first bit of actual content for the site, I’ve decided to write about some recent experiences with airline travel and how they affect big & tall men.  Readers will find that I will always state with any review that your mileage may vary, however I hope to provide what may be at least a small bit of guidance.

I have an equation that I frequently use to determine whether I fly or drive to a function, event or vacation destination.  Determining whether one should fly is an individual choice, and I always factor things in like rental car cost, parking cost, flight time, plane type and many other factors.  Everyone is going to be different in this respect, so I’ll refrain from expanding any further on the issue.  But once you’ve made the decision to fly, as a big & tall man, you have some legwork to do to keep the experience pleasant.

Your choice of air travel as a big & tall man can sometimes be a difficult one.  After speaking with many big & tall men, traveling for any reason can become a huge hassle if airplanes are required.  With this short series of articles, I hope to help minimize that hassle for you with recommendations and ideas that have worked for me countless times.  Planes and seats to choose are important to helping you determine how to get the best experience, and other factors such as boarding and baggage tips can enhance the experience even more.

Part 1 – Choosing your plane wisely.

Choosing your plane wisely can make or break the trip for you.  Picking a bad plane can dictate a large portion of your travel experience and make life miserable for you and those around you.  Some people choose to spend the extra money for a more spacious business class or first class seat, however for the budget conscious, this is not always an option.

Recent trips have placed me all over the continental United States via a few different planes.  Over the course of the last few years, I’ve come to love the Airbus A319/A320 series of planes.  They are extremely common here in the United States with budget carriers and generally afford “enough space” for me to be comfortable for up to 3 hours.  No matter the seating configuration, most of the A319 and A320’s I’ve flown in have been spacious enough to accommodate me, although some variations can and will cause issues.

EDIT: Thanks to Mark Peacock over at the TravelCommons Podcast for featuring us on his blog / podcast.  Mark went even further by giving us a tip on the exact best place to sit on an Airbus A319 if you can get it…  The window seat of the second exit row on United and Frontier Airline’s A319 is configured without a seat in front of it… giving you the most legroom possible in today’s fleet of aircraft.  Thanks, Mark!

However…  My “good enough” may not be enough for others.  The A320 is spacious, but would be uncomfortable if either of my dimensions were much larger than they are currently.

I go to great lengths to avoid certain planes with terrible seating configurations.   The McDonnell Douglas MD-80 series and the Canadair Regional Jets (CRJ-900, etc.) almost never have a spacious seating layout and can most literally not accommodate my leg length regardless of seating position.  The bulkhead seats in a CRJ-900 are the ONLY seats that I can sit in, and they are always the first to be reserved.

Now it’s your turn… Most of my air travel experience takes place on domestic flights.  My wife and I are considering a lot of international travel in coming years, however I could really use input on the subject.  If you’d like to write a small blurb about your big & tall international travel experiences, drop us a line via email at tim@sizeoflife.com or write something in our comments section of this post.

In part 2 of this series, we’ll discuss researching and booking your trip.

Categories: Travel
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