Virgin Seat Selection PQQ-SYD

[RB]

With the new ATR planes in service I am after seat tips for DJ1188. I believe I have read somewhere that the flight is loaded through a rear door only, not sure what the unloading is in Syd. Flight for next Thurs is wide open with only 4 seats at rear currently selected.

 

[MarkD]

With the new ATR planes in service I am after seat tips for DJ1188. I believe I have read somewhere that the flight is loaded through a rear door only, not sure what the unloading is in Syd. Flight for next Thurs is wide open with only 4 seats at rear currently selected.

I have sat in quite a few different ones, Row 1 is best, because ATM you will have no companion sat next to you. For actual comfort of ride, I have found Row 9 to be the best, right under the wing, so not a lot of movement. The back tends to slide around a bit, and is VERY noticable especially in crosswinds
My preference is always 9a

 

[RB]

Just as a bit of follow-up on my original question.
The ATR PQQ-SYD does indeed load and unload from the back door only.
I am not a high volume flyer but as additional feedbck I would make the following observations
I had done advance seat selection and had selected a seat in row 2 where there was no seat in front (I was in no hurry to get off the plane) but this selection did not last & when doing online checkin I was in row 16 on a full plane. I now certainly agree with the previous observation by another poster that the back of the plane is not the place to be in cross winds
Seats seem to be very hard, the same as I found the Y+ seats of VA to LA. There is a very limited option of a seat back sleeve to store anything. The personal air outlet above the seat seemed to have very limited capacity.
The FAs were very efficient & I got there only 20 odd minutes late -I think there were general problems on the day with the east/west runway in use & no sign of which carousel to collect baggage from.

 

[JohnK]

I know it is a bit late now but I was on one of these aircraft GLT-BNE 2 weeks ago.

I was not too sure what to expect so I chose an aisle seat in row 2 and to research further. Got to the airport the next day and was handed a boarding pass for 17F and was told this was the best part of the aircraft as it was rear boarding only. I asked about aisle seat and was given boarding pass for 17D.

I took a risk but glad I chose that row as I had no one next to me on what was a relatively full flight. It was good that I could get out first and was well inside the terminal before the nearest person to me was inside the terminal. Weather was fine but from memory a BME-DRW flight in wet and windy conditions was not much fun in a forward seat in an E130 (or was it E120) so this could not be much worse.

By the way I have tried forward, middle and rear rows on the Dash-8's and there is not that difference between them.

 

[RB]

By the way I have tried forward, middle and rear rows on the Dash-8's and there is not that difference between them.

Must agree that it doesn't seem to make much difference of where you sit in the dash 8 in rougher weather (assume thats what you mean)- have seen people sick in row 2 on a SYD-PQQ flight that I didn't find that bad. It seems to be more "drops in height" on QF rather than the "side-swaying" that the back of the DJ flight seemed to suffer.

 

[JohnK]

Yes RB that is what I meant. It does not appear to matter much where you sit on the smaller aircraft such as Dash-8's when the weather is a little rough.

Not sure of the statistics but I would say somewhere over the wings may have less turbulence as that part of the aircraft is a little more stable. And from memory row 1 and 2 is not that forward and is closer to the wings than the front of the aircraft anyway.