The New SeatGuru? AeroLopa Launches Traffic Light System to Rate Airplane Seats

Last November, Tripadvisor finally pulled the plug and shut down the SeatGuru website after years of neglect. At the time, we went in search of alternatives and recommended two sites: SeatMaps.com for its color-coding system and AeroLopa for detailed, accurate seat maps, albeit without good/bad ratings.

Apparently, the team behind AeroLopa is well aware of the void SeatGuru left behind. Consequently, they have now introduced exactly the feature that made SeatGuru so famous: a traffic light system that uses green, yellow, or red to indicate whether a seat is a good choice. At least in theory, because when it comes to the data itself, there is still plenty of room for improvement.

By the way, the feature wasn’t just shamelessly stolen. It was revealed on Flyertalk that Matt Daimler, the original founder of SeatGuru, is now supporting the development of AeroLopa. He was responsible for SeatGuru until it was acquired by Tripadvisor in 2007.

How to access the new feature

Unfortunately, we have to point out one limitation right away. A free AeroLopa account is required to use the new system. Fortunately, the registration process has been significantly simplified. You no longer need to provide or verify a phone number; an email address (or login via Apple/Google) is sufficient.

Once logged in, you can activate the color scale on every (?) seat map using the following toggle:

And the seat map will then look like this, for example:

Hovering over a seat with your mouse will then list the (alleged) pros and cons:

Seat Ratings Not Yet Fully Accurate

So far, so good. Excited by the new feature, we immediately checked a few seat maps we are familiar with, and were promptly brought back down to earth. You can’t really rely on the individual seat ratings just yet.

We looked through several seat plans, and for almost every aircraft type we’ve flown, we noticed various inconsistencies. Here is a brief, incomplete list to give you an idea:

• SAS A350: Seat 40B is marked as Avoid due to a fixed armrest and potential noise from children. Seat 40C, right next to it, is not. However, the aisle seat is arguably worse, as you are constantly bumped by other passengers. Ideally, both should be yellow.
• Lufthansa A350 Allegris: Window seats 7A and 7K are marked yellow due to their proximity to the galley. However, it is not mentioned that these seats offer significantly more storage space than other window seats. In our view, they are among the best seats on the A350.
• Lufthansa A350 Allegris: For the Economy seats in row 19 (directly behind Premium Eco), a bulkhead is listed as a disadvantage. However, there is no bulkhead there; the Premium Economy seats are directly in front of them.
• Turkish Airlines A350: The pairs of seats at the back are marked red due to proximity to the lavatories. The advantages are not mentioned.
• Turkish Airlines A350: Several seats are marked as Avoid without any reason being provided.
• Air Europa B787-9: Seats 18A and 18K are marked red because a baby *might* be seated five rows away. The seats much closer to that position remain grey.

Naturally, these could just be growing pains that will be fixed eventually. But for now, it feels like an unrefined algorithm was simply run across the maps, assigning colors almost at random. At best, the ratings are a starting point for your own research. Still, it is encouraging to see this free tool being improved so consistently.

Community integration in the form of reviews and photos of individual seats, similar to what was possible with SeatGuru, would definitely be useful. We expect this will happen sooner or later. The introduction of user accounts was a clear first step. It remains to be seen whether all of this will remain accessible for free.

Further news from AeroLopa

There have been other recent updates from AeroLopa, including:

• On the homepage, there is now a search form that theoretically allows you to find the correct seat map using a flight number and date. In our tests, however, this did not work and only produced error messages.
• ExpertFlyer has revised its integrated seat maps and now includes AeroLopa directly.
• For several months now, details such as seat pitch, manufacturer, power outlets, etc., are only displayed after logging in.
• The search function has been enhanced and now finds aircraft codes (e.g., A359), airline codes (e.g., LH), and more.
• There is now a blog, where updates on new features are published.