Simple Google Chrome Extension Adds Legroom to Search Results
Tall passengers and premium cabin travelers rejoice! While Google Flights is already great for searching flights and finding new destinations, there's now an easy Google Chrome extension that makes searching Google Flights even easier.
Users of Google Flights know that the website displays helpful information about different flight options such as flight number, duration, legroom or business-class recline (lie-flat, angle-flat, recliner), Wi-Fi, power and in-flight entertainment options:
However, these options are only displayed once you select a particular flight option. Google Flights doesn't let you filter search results by these options or display these details in the search results.
While comprehensive filtering would be nice for those of us relying on Wi-Fi or power when we travel, a lot of travelers are just interested in the legroom from these results. Until the "SEAT Act" passes requiring minimum seat sizes on flights, there's going to continue to be notable differences between airlines. Low-cost carriers are going to push the limits of human flexibility while legacy carriers are being guilted into not going below 30 inches of pitch.
Now, rather than having to click on each individual flight option, a new Chrome extension will show you the legroom right in the search results:
Here's how to set it up:
1. Open Chrome. (Unfortunately, this extension isn't available on other browsers)
2. Browse to the Legrooms for Google Flights extension install page
3. Click "Add to Chrome" and confirm
That's it! Now, open Google Flights and do a search to see the results. If you search for economy flights, seat pitch (the distance between seatbacks) will be displayed in the search results. For those unaware of the impact of a few inches, here are photos of the same 5 foot 11 inch tall man in seats ranging from 29 inches of pitch to 34 inches of pitch (28 inches of pitch wasn't filmed due to its cruelty).
If you're searching Google Flights for business or first class, the Legroom for Google Flights extension will add the seat recline information to the initial search results. At a glance, this puts search results and vast price differences in perspective:
Bottom Line
For those of us that use Google Flights to search flight options, installing this extension is a no-brainer. While we hope that Google Flights will improve search result filtering (Google: basic economy filtering please!), for now it looks like we are going to have to rely on helpful tools like this to help fine-tune the flight search process.