I Flew 3 Hours In A Coach Middle Seat — Now I’m Rethinking Why I Pay Extra For Domestic First Class

I flew from Washington National airport to Dallas – Fort Worth in a coach middle seat, 12B, on Thursday and it was fine? The truth is that the coach product on major airlines is not that bad. I was able to get about two and a half hours of work done on my laptop. The wifi worked.

Growing up I used to fly coach all the time. I never imagined I’d fly anything else. I never heard of an upgrade, and couldn’t imagine either being in a position to pay for anything else – or being willing to spend so much money just for comfort during the flight. “You’re both getting there at the same time!” I flew cross-country and across oceans often.

Taking an American Airlines DC-10 to Sydney via Honolulu wasn’t bad at all when the plane was empty and I could snag a middle row of coach to myself. It wasn’t great flying a completely packed plane. I still remember watching John Goodman star as King Ralph on loop and being unable to escape it all the way to Honolulu.

Thirty years ago I learned about upgrades. I started doing everything I could to avoid coach. When I was just a premier (now ‘silver’) on United, I would go out of my way to pick larger aircraft with more premium seats, and even pick my travel dates and times, to maximize chances of an upgrade. I’d fly a Boeing 777 at noon on Wednesday via Denver if I had to, instead of a non-stop to the West Coast, but fortunately back then United flew Boeing 747s on domestic routes that were can’t miss for the upgrade.

Upgrades don’t exist much today. Airlines have gone from selling just about 10% of their first class seats on domestic flights, to monetizing (in Delta’s case) about 88% of them.

That includes the seats they upsell to once a year flyers for $26 because recently-retired Glen Hauenstein hated more than anything the idea of fulfilling a complimentary upgade for a Diamond member spending $30,000 or $40,000 a year with Delta on tickets.

At the same time, is is a lot cheaper to buy up to first class than it used to be. It was once several times the cost of a coach ticket. Then airlines got more sophisticated, pricing it as a fixed amount over whatever the prevailing economy fare cost. And now they continue selling even after the ticket’s been bought – at a price designed to get something for every seat, and only offer upgrades if the algorithm fails.

So there’s a genuine disagreement – does it make any sense to spend more for domestic first class? As always the answer is ‘at what margin’: how long is the flight, and how much more does it cost?

Welp, I guess I’ll say it:

I pay for 1st class when I fly for work.

I’m tall. Coach kills me. I feel cramped and really can’t get much done.

Instead, I can get in 2-3 hours of good work up front.

It’s productive with no distractions.

Worth the $200-300 extra for me. https://t.co/3g6clA24VX

— Robbie Hendricks (@robbiehendricks) May 23, 2026

I no longer mind coach on a 3 hour flight. I’m very happy in an exit row middle. My biggest beef is how hard some coach seats are, with how little padding (Southwest, United). Airlines tried to mask how much legroom they were taking away – squeezing seats closer together – by also taking away seat padding. That way they ‘got back’ half an inch of space, at the cost to your bum and back. I need a decently-padded seat. That’s not great for my back.

I want the extra legroom seat so that the person in front of me doesn’t recline into my laptop, but I use a small enough laptop that I can manage even without that. On Thursday I had to yank the laptop off my tray table just in time as the passenger in row 11 reclined hard.

I prefer first class for more tray table space, and more places to put a drink or a snack while having my laptop open. But mostly I just tune out the world around me, plug in and work. As long as I have functional wifi I’m good.

That doesn’t work long haul, where I’m too tired to work and where I need to sleep. And it doesn’t work because the seat just gets too uncomfortable and there’s less space to adjust.

And I’ll be honest, the biggest part of this change has been personal: my weight. I was wider before the pandemic, and so it was far more uncomfortable being in coach. That’s about seat width, not about legroom. It’s not the meals or the drinks up front that mattered. It was just being sandwiched next to other passengers, and frankly other passengers being sandwiched next to me.

When travel was limited in 2020 I lost my first 20 pounds, just by not being on the road and not eating poorly and not getting enough exercise. Sure, I’d walk long terminals! But I didn’t make it to the hotel gym as often as I should have. But stuck at home during Covid, I ate better and I exercised more. And from there my weight loss kept going.

Gary in 2018

I absolutely still want to fly in premium cabins! I love international first class. I don’t want to do long haul in less than business. But it bothers me a lot less that I may wind up stuck in back on more domestic flights than this used to happen.