TUI Airways

TUI Airways is the flying arm of the TUI package-holiday group in the UK, carrying holidaymakers from airports around Britain to the Mediterranean and the Canaries, and on its Dreamliners to the Caribbean, Mexico and Florida. Most seats are sold alongside a hotel, but the aircraft work like any other airline's, and the seat decision is just as real.

The wider TUI group flies near-identical aircraft under sister brands in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and Scandinavia; the layouts here are published under the UK operation. Fleet logic is simple: Boeing narrowbodies and an Embraer for the short hops, Boeing 787s for the beaches that need an ocean crossed.

The 737-800 and 737 MAX 8 share the same single-class map, a full three-by-three economy, with the MAX bringing the quieter, newer airframe to the same routes. The E195-E2 is the short-haul fleet's odd one out, in the best way: two rows of pairs down the whole cabin, so the aircraft has no middle seats at all.

The 787-8 and 787-9 carry the reason to pay attention: a large premium cabin in a two-by-three-by-two layout ahead of a nine-abreast economy. It is a physically separate cabin with its own rows and its own seat, and on the -9 it stretches deep enough that where you sit within it starts to matter.

Short-haul is one product: a dense, tidy economy cabin where the difference between a legroom row and a standard one is the whole game. The E195-E2 softens the formula by design, since a full flight there still leaves everyone a window or an aisle.

The 787s run a two-tier holiday operation. Premium buys a wider seat with markedly more recline for the long ocean sectors, and because it is a real cabin rather than a curtained-off zone it stays calm even when the aircraft is full of families. Economy gets the Dreamliner's bigger windows and easier cabin air in the standard snug nine-abreast.

On the 737s, the first rows and the over-wing exits carry the extra legroom, and on aircraft sold with package holidays they go early, so choose seats when you book the trip rather than at check-in. The row ahead of the exits gives up recline, and the deepest rows aft spend the flight beside the rear galley and the lavatory queue.

The E195-E2 needs one caution: several window seats sit beside a blank panel or a frame out of line with the row, so window devotees should pick an exact seat rather than a side. On the 787s, aim for the middle rows of the premium cabin, clear of the bulkhead's armrest-tray front row and the lavatory traffic at the cabin ends; in economy the bulkheads hold the legroom and a window or aisle keeps you out of the centre block's middle seat.