Which airline?

[24lemons]

We are planning a trip to California in March and I was wondering who the airline of choice would be. We will of course be travelling cattle class but I am north of 6ft so I am after the most leg room I can get.

I am open to all thoughts and suggestions, like most people price will also be a factor especially since I want to hire a Mustang to do the Pacific coast! My only other long flight was to New York with Virgin Atlantic and I cant say I was overly impressed with the space on offer or the in flight entertainment (it kept freezing and needing rebooting!)

Over to PH!

[Nickyboy]

I flew Air New Zealand to LAX 2 months back, brilliant brilliant service, 33" of leg room on the seats to each side of the place, center seats are 32". I'm 6ft and my mate is 6'4 and we had loads of room. Excellent in flight entertainment, touch screen tv's with hundreds of movies, TV shows and music as well as the ability to order food, drinks from the screen. The seats also had laptop plugs and USB ports.

[Puggit]

Slightly left field but you could consider Air France or Lufthansa - both fly the A380 to the West Coast and would probably be cheaper than BA or Virgin

[Matt..]

My last trip to the states was with United, and I paid the extra for exit row seats as I am too tall for normal economy.

[Bradgate]

Check out www.seatguru.com. This site allows you to compare the seat maps for all the major carriers. NZ do offer a good economy product, for obvious reasons.

A good tip is to join a carrier's frequent flyer program if possible, some of which give preferential access to seats with additional legroom.

I usually recommend driving the Pacific Highway from north to south, that way you are driving next to the ocean. If you drive in the other direction, you will have southbound traffic between you and the ocean.

Monterey, Santa Barbara, Carmel and Avila Beach are all good overnight stopovers. A detour to Death Valley is highly recommended.

Enjoy your trip!

Edited by Bradgate on Sunday 2nd December 22:38

[24lemons]

Thank you everyone so far. Air New Zealand is looking tempting at the moment especially as they fly direct. Good suggestion regarding Pacific Coast Highway - think we may have to change the route to allow for this. Hoping to catch NASCAR in Vegas on March 10th.

[thehawk]

Definitely Air New Zealand, can't say enough good about them. Easily one of the best non-Asian airlines out there.

Also very innovative with great products and safety videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBlRbrB_Gnc

I just flew back on this :

[jmorgan]

Went with Delta to the US in cattle class recently and boy did it hurt, 6'1" lanky git with the standard leg room was a mare. Looking at the next one on BA with a bump up to cattle class+ with extra leg room for not much extra.

[24lemons]

thehawk said:

Definitely Air New Zealand, can't say enough good about them. Easily one of the best non-Asian airlines out there.

Also very innovative with great products and safety videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBlRbrB_Gnc

I just flew back on this :

That video is almost worth the fare alone!!