SeatGuru Is Gone But You Can Still Visit the Old Site and a Top Competitor –

I used to be afraid to fly and one of the reasons was that when I first started traveling, I didn’t know the big difference between a middle seat in the back or a bulkhead in the front. Once I started mastering travel, my go-to website was SeatGuru.com because it showed all the seat configurations on hundreds of aircraft and airlines from around the world.

It was a simple but brilliant site highlighting seats as good (green), bad (red) or “be aware” (yellow). SeatGuru launched in October 2001 by frequent business traveler Matthew Daimler and he sold it in March 2007 to TripAdvisor (then part of Expedia). It not only showed users the best seats but also the location of lavatories and galleys, whether the seats had power ports or bassinets and if they reclined.

What surprised me is that after a while, the site started to decline instead of improve. It was a real shame. It’s why I began cross-checking other sites like AeroLOPA. Here’s my 2022 review of it.

Even more surprising is that if you visit SeatGuru.com today, there’s a message reading: “SeatGuru has closed down, please visit TripAdvisor to plan your next trip,” and it redirects to TripAdvisor.com. What a shame.

According to my buddy Gary Leff from ViewFromTheWing, in its heyday, SeatGuru covered over 700 aircraft types across more than 100 airlines. If you miss it, you can still explore the old site via The Wayback Machine: SeatGuru Archive.

It’s amazing how much SeatGuru changed the way travelers plan flights. Before sites like this, figuring out the best seat meant relying on random advice, forum posts or trial and error. Suddenly you could see detailed maps for almost every plane you might fly making it easier to choose a seat that actually suited your preferences. Families could avoid seats near bathrooms, solo travelers could find the quietest spots and business travelers could pick seats with extra legroom without paying for upgrades blindly.

While it’s disappointing that the site is gone, its legacy lives on. It taught travelers to be more intentional about their seats, which can make the difference between a miserable flight and one that’s comfortable.

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