BOOKING the best seat on the plane is essential when travelling, especially if you're going long-haul.
An expert has revealed how to avoid booking the worst seats and how to bag the best ones, using free apps.
The trick is to check out the calibre of each seat on the website SeatGuru and the app Seat Alerts - and to get the very best option, use both in tandem.
Tech expert Kurt 'CyberGuy' Knutsson told Fox News: "SeatGuru gives you seat reviews to learn which are the worst to avoid and Seat Alerts will notify you when a better seat becomes available on an upcoming flight."
SeatGuru allows you to see everything about the seats available on your specific aircraft.
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After flying, passengers can review their flight experience, including how comfortable or uncomfortable their seat was.
All you have to do is head to SeatGuru and enter your flight details, including the airline, date of travel, and flight number.
Once you're in, click "View map" to see which seats are excellent or terrible.
The seats are colour-coded, with green meaning "good seat" and red as "bad seat."
While yellow is "be aware - see comments," and yellow and green stand for "mixed reviews".
You can also read a brief description of all seats, including their legroom, whether they recline, and floor storage space.
If your preferred seat isn't available, you could use the Seat Alerts app to get an alert if it becomes available.
If you don't fancy downloading a new app, you can also use Seat Alerts' parent website, ExpertFlyer.com.
You'll have to enter your flight details on the site or the app, including the date, airline, flight number, cabin, and departure and arrival cities.
Then, you'll be able to set notifications for the seats you want.
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Setting up a seat alert costs 99 cents on the app, but it is free to set up on the site for one seat at a time.
The pro subscription at ExpertFlyer.com entitles users to an unlimited number of seat notifications, which will inform you whenever a better seat becomes available.
For more expert advice, a former flight attendant revealed that the emergency exit is usually the best place to sit on a plane.
She said: "These seats usually come with an extra fee, so you're less likely to have people sitting next to you here."
They tend to have more legroom for safety purposes as they need to be roomy enough for passengers to make their way through in an emergency.
And if the emergency exit rows are taken, you should opt for the seats at the front of the plane.
She said: "Sitting in the front of the aircraft often makes for a smooth and quiet ride."
To complicate matters, though, research shows that the middle seat might be the best after all.
Research by the Aviation Safety Network analysed 65 plane crashes and found which seats were safest based on survival rates.
A middle seat towards the back of a plane was found to be the safest, with a 28 per cent mortality rate - compared to seats further forward which had a mortality rate of 44 per cent.
For more plane hacks, we found the five things passengers can get for free even in economy - all you have to do is ask.
And this frequent flyer shared a really interesting method for feeling better about air travel.
While these tips can help you prepare for a flight if you've got a fear of flying, including courses you can take to help you.
