The Grumpy Traveller isn't always grumpy. He saves some of his best smiles for airline check-in staff around the world.

Mostly, I have to say, it's a complete of waste of time.

I'll smile while asking if it's possible to have an aisle seat. The check-in person will smile sweetly and tell you that all the aisle seats have gone, and he or she will then hand you a boarding card that turns out to be the middle seat of three in the centre aisle.

This is the seat in front of the kid who likes to fidget and put his knees into the back of your seat.

The seat behind the person who pushes their seat back as soon as the warning signs go off, forcing you to read your book two centimetres from your nose.

The seat where the crying baby in the next row serenades you for six hours.

The seat that makes you perfectly invisible as you try to attract the attention of cabin staff in an attempt to stifle your frustration with a large gin and tonic.

Sounds familiar? Of course it does. And as you sit there cursing your luck, you know that the check-in person who put you in this sheep pen had held back the emergency exit row seats for a workmate who's off on holiday.

But my experiences seem to pale before a passenger in seat 29E on a recent Continental Airlines flight to Houston. In a letter of complaint that's been flying around cyberspace, our disgruntled passenger claims that he was seated so near to the toilet that "all my senses are being tortured simultaneously".

The passenger next to the pong, wrote, "It's difficult to say what's the worst part about sitting in 29E. Is it the stench of sanitation fluid that is blown all over my body when the door opens?

Is it the whoosh of the constant flushing? Or is it the passengers' asses that fit into my personal space like a pornographic jigsaw puzzle?"

The passenger in 29E ends his letter by suggesting that he would like to flush down the toilet the heads of airline executives who coerced the plane's interior designers into squeezing an extra row of seats alongside the toilet.

But help is at hand, Mr 29E. The days of the check-in queue and the chances of getting a "bum" seat are numbered. Soon we'll be choosing our own seats from the comfort of our homes.

British Airways is the latest airline to allow remote check-in via a home computer. Virgin Atlantic is rolling out a similar facility.

Soon we won't be able to blame anyone but ourselves if we choose seat 29E, unless of course it's the last seat on the plane, which it probably will be.

Smart flyers would do well to check out www.seatguru.com before making their seat selection online. The site lists many of the big carriers, with detailed diagrams of their cabin configuration and tips on the best seats to choose.

And yes, our man next to the toilet will be pleased to know that all lavatories are marked on the diagrams, which is why most of them are marked in red as The Seats to Avoid.



IAN JARRETT is based in Fremantle, Western Australia from where he travels frequently in Asia on assignments for travel magazines.

He is a member of the BamBoo Alliance, a group of leading travel writers in the region. He can be contacted at ianjarrett@mac.com