9 ways to make flying coach downright comfy

[Bulldog]

You may be surprised by the extra comfort hidden among the cheap seats

Dragging your wheelie down the aisle past business class and premium economy, toward your final resting place in steerage, doesn't have to feel like entering Dante's Ninth Circle of Hell. If you choose your airlines and aircraft wisely and then engineer your way into their coach cabins' best seats, the amount of extra comfort you can get might surprise you.

The most pleasant airplane experience my family of four has had, for instance, was a Continental flight from Barcelona to Newark last December. If you're wondering how on God's green earth a nine-and-a-half-hour confinement on that one-aisle winged sardine can known as a 757 can possibly be described as anything remotely resembling "pleasant," I have one word for you: AVOD.

Audio Video on Demand has now been installed on all of Continental's 757-200s. Each passenger gets their own 9-inch screen with up to 25 movies that can be started, stopped, paused, rewound or fast-forwarded at will. I watched two movies back-to-back — good films that I'd actually wanted to see in theaters but had missed.

More: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30013793/