Location of where we sit on long-haul flights plays a bigger part in the overall experience and comfort for our guests. We have thus provided options for those that want seats that provide benefits including extra leg-room, located near exit doors, near lavatories (some prefer to be far from them!), and those with baby bassinets. These are what we term our HOT SEATS.

Our guests have the option of pre-selecting their seats according to their preferences, before they fly. Based on numerous feedback received, I’d like to use this platform to provide more information on our HOT economy seats.

The full seat map for our A330 and A340 (according to scale, identifying all the locations of the hot seats, exit doors, lavatories and bassinets) is available in my other blog post (Finally, New Seats for AirAsia X).

Here are some pictures of hot seats at different locations.

This is the picture of seats 7A, 7B, and 7C. These hot seats have more legroom than regular seats, but not the most legroom. Their main advantage is the location right in the front of the economy section, enabling convenient boarding and disembarkation. The extra legroom is comparable to other seats in row 7. The equivalent seats on the A340 Europe aircraft are the seats in rows 1 and 16.

My personal opinion is that the best hot seats are seats 15H, 15J, and 15K shown here. They have maximum legroom being next to the second set of exit doors – and therefore also convenient for boarding/disembarkation, and near a lavatory and food galley. There are no direct equivalent seats on our A340.

These are seats 17A, 17B and 17C which are also very good. They have more legroom than row 7. Its also similarly conveniently located as row 15. Its near a lavatory – which can be a positive or negative. The lavatory door is discretely facing the exit door, away from the seat.

Seats 16D, 16F, 16G are also similar to seats 17ABC in terms of legroom and location convenience. They are in the middle section and are best for baby bassinet.

Similar in generous legroom as 16DFG are seats 34DFG, except the location is further behind the aircraft. Here you can also see views of seats 35ABC and seats 35 HJK, which again, have maximum legroom because they are next to exit doors. On the A340 aircraft for Europe service, the equivalent seats are in row 27.

Another view of seats 35HJK (equivalent to 35ABC):

Besides having these HOT SEATS that offer extra comfort and convenience, we have many more ideas on how to improve the overall experience. One of our upcoming projects that we are studying is how we can tailor different zones of to suit guest preferences, e.g., a quiet, no-kids zone, or a social zone (how about speed dating games?) I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas on how we can make our long-haul flights more comfortable and fun by managing where people sit onboard.