When it comes to attempting to sleep in economy, window seats reign supreme, with bonus points for being as far away from the galleys and lavatories as possible.
Window seats are great for two reasons. One, they give your head a place to rest. "As long as you have a travel pillow or a rolled up fleece jacket for your head at a window seat, you can lean your head on the window or part of the window," former flight attendant Susan Fogwell tells Travel+Leisure. And two, you won't be jostled by anyone walking by as you would if you were seated on the aisle.
But the downside to window seats is, of course, being able to get up to use the lavatory with ease. You'll probably have to climb over one or two (potentially sleeping) seatmates. One way to get around that problem is to pick a bulkhead window seat, as you might have enough room to slip past your seatmates without disturbing them.
As for staying away from the galleys and lavatories, those are two of the most disruptive spaces on planes. Flight attendants not only prepare their service in the galley, which is noisy, smelly, and bright in itself, but they also spend some of their downtime there — and that means they might be chatting. Lavatories, too, are loud and bright, and your sleep might be disrupted by passengers who queue up for them (particularly if you're in the aisle).
Fogwell has another recommendation for getting a decent night's sleep on a plane, and it has less to do with the seat itself. "Whenever possible, if you can fly on a widebody aircraft versus a narrowbody, book on the widebody. There is way more room, and you don't feel like a sardine," advises Fogwell.
Then for a specific seat on a widebody, she recommends looking at the seat chart to pick a seat across from the flight attendant jumpseat. "The flight attendant is only in the seat for take-off and landing, so you'll have that extra room for better sleeping," says Fogwell.
While sleep might not come to many passengers on a plane, hopefully these tips might give you a fighting chance at rest!