After studying the seatmap with worrying levels of dedication ahead of our long voyage to Barbados in economy back in April, I thought I’d pull together a quick snapshot of how to pick the best seats for Aer Lingus A321LR & A321XLR economy cabins (both being pretty much the same), because if it’s legroom you’re after there’s some quite unusual differences. Note; I've already covered this aircraft types best business class seats, previously.

First things first; why pay much attention? Aer Lingus increasingly flies these two aircraft types on pretty far-flung jaunts (Barbados being an obvious, and possibly slightly extreme example), and with only a single aisle and a cabin otherwise not dissimilar to a standard short-haul experience, seat selection – especially if you’re tall like me – is pretty critical.

Right off the bat, I don’t recommend Row 7, the bulkhead. Having seen it in person, and been allocated to the row and subsequently asking to move, it’s not great. The wall is full height so there’ll be no stretching your legs out as far as you can, there is no at-seat storage, the monitors are mounted pretty high up on the wall I’d imagine for most people, and with the larger Airbus overhead lockers, getting out from a window or middle seat will require no less contortions than anywhere else in the cabin.

The emergency exit rows, in Rows 14 & 15, suffer the same issues in terms of at-seat storage at least for take-off and landing, but are otherwise far superior. Both seats offer 35 inches of legroom, with the ability to stretch your feet out under the seat in front of you. Obviously, because Row 14 is unable to recline so as not to impede the other exit row behind, Row 15 is the absolute best choice, arguably in the entire cabin.

For the same reason, a row to definitely avoid if you fancy any recline at any point is Row 13, which offers no recline due to the emergency exit rows behind.

Now here’s where it gets very strange in terms of legroom on Aer Lingus’ A321 aircraft – all seats from rows 16 to 21 have 31 inches of legroom (vs. 32” elsewhere).

Except, in order to make space for a lavatory at the rear of the aircraft on the ABC side, all rows from 22 to the back of the plane, row 34, have only 32 inches of legroom only in seats A, B and C.

In other words, if you don’t fancy paying up for one of the extra legroom seats in 14 & 15, but want as much legroom (and recline) as is otherwise on offer, go for any seat from Row 8 to 12, and then from Row 22 to 34 in D, E or F only. Strange, right?

One last, slightly comical point, on the A321XLR economy cabin seating especially; we found the quality of the seats very poor – one kept reclining by itself, one wouldn’t recline at all, my headrest fell off when I tried to adjust the wings at one point. Not that this can be particularly helped, but we did need to move around twice – so keep in mind sticking to a preferred side (e.g. DEF) may make it easier if you need to move rows at a later stage.

Any other questions on this cabin or any others you’d like me to cover, let me know in the comments!