47

I'm in an Avianca Airbus A320 and the seats are numbered ABC, DEK. Any particular reason why not "DEF"?

Improve this question
0

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
64

I have never before noticed this, but a quick check over several airlines at Seatguru confirmed that other airlines do that as well.

The logic behind this is that the letters A and K will always be window seats. The letter K is chosen, because it's the highest that you can go in a normal airplane with 10 seats across (An A380 for instance). I is omitted because of it's resemblance to 1.

Note that Avianca does this even for the smaller airplanes, where you'll have ACDK. B and E are omitted so that C and D are always aisle seats. This is also maintained on the bigger A330, where numbering is AC - DEFG - JK.

Just to illustrate, here's are the seat configuration for all their planes:

AC - DEFG - JK
AC     -    DK
ABC    -   DEK

So A and K are window seats; C, G seats with aisle on the right; D, J seats with aisle on the left; B,E,F middle seats.

It's a little illogical on the other side though, I don't understand why they use J instead of H, would make more sense to put a H, then if they happen to buy bigger air planes, they could just fit in the B and the H.

There's a little bit more information on this on Wikipedia.

Improve this answer
8
  • +1, I answered earlier, but this answer is much more explained.
    – Nean Der Thal
    Jun 22, 2014 at 17:22
  • 4
    A number of airlines also use similar numbering patterns front to back, as you will walk past rows 1 to 8 in upper class then the first economy row is 30.
    – user13044
    Jun 22, 2014 at 17:48
  • @tom true, airlines I work for do that.
    – Nean Der Thal
    Jun 22, 2014 at 18:10
  • 1
    @Tom Damn. That's why a 30-something seat is always further forward than I expect!
    – OJFord
    Jun 22, 2014 at 23:09
  • Similarly, you'll often see "AC DEF" on a single-aisle narrow-body with 5 seats across — and the same plane might be "AC DF" in business class. (The US carriers I'm familiar with don't bother going up to J or K on a plane with only a single aisle).
    – hobbs
    Jun 23, 2014 at 4:29

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .