Airlines are fitting Wi-Fi, power outlets, or BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) video-streaming systems into more and more of their planes, and we'll soon expect rather than hope to connect to the internet or use our devices to stream entertainment as we hurtle 30,000 feet in the air at 600 mph.
Until every flight has Wi-Fi, however, these terrestrial search tips will help you find out which flights have the amenities you want.
Two sites in particular can help you find out what kind of amenities are featured in pretty much every flight in the world.
Routehappy is particularly useful for telling you what kind of onboard entertainment you can expect on a flight. For example, you can see which flights specifically have paid or free live TV, on-demand video, personal-device video streaming, or all/none of the above.
Like some travel sites, Routehappy also shows you which flights have Wi-Fi. But Routehappy goes a little bit further by showing you the quality of Wi-Fi on a particular flight.
You can also find out whether flights have power outlets to charge your devices if your mile-high web surfing drains your device's battery. Many airlines reserve the outlets for premium or first-class passengers, however, and Routehappy will not tell you whether the outlets are also available in economy class.
That's when SeatGuru comes in.
SeatGuru gives you simpler information about a flight's amenities than Routehappy, but it shows you exactly which seats have the power outlets.
In a flight's details section, you will see a link with the aircraft model that will fly the route, as shown in the screenshot below. Click it to open a seating map that will show you which seats have power outlets.
The tiny gray dot on each seat is the symbol representing power outlets. For this particular flight, power outlets are available for every seat.
SeatGuru also offers a bunch of useful non-tech information, such as which seats have the most legroom and which are least favorable because of their proximity to bathrooms.
You can book flights from either of these websites.
Even if you discover that the cheapest flight with the best timing doesn't have any of the amenities you're looking for and you're not willing to pay more for a flight that does, knowing ahead could still let you prepare and arrange some entertainment such as movies or TV to watch on a smartphone, tablet, or laptop.
SEE ALSO: Delta created a 'Netflix in the sky' app that lets you watch movies for free, and it's awesome
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