New airplane seat 'comfort scorecard' site launches

For years we've recommended the

Seat Guru

website as the best resource for checking the quality of a particular airplane seat when making your online seat selections. Now there's a new airplane seat-rating site in town.

The "Airplane Seat Comfort Scorecard" at

seatscorecard.com

seems determined to give Seat Guru a run for its money as the top seat-selection resource. The site claims to be the product of more than "4,200 hours of analysis and research" and more than 20 independent research firms. It covers 10,000 seat reviews on 300 different airplane types on 70 airlines, including JetBlue, United, Southwest, and British Airways. According to a site representative, seatscorecard.com is "updated continually."

My initial impressions of the site are positive. It's easy to use and features intuitive visual tools for checking seat quality. Near as I can tell—by checking the planes and airlines I'm most familiar with—it appears to be accurate as well.

Considering the commotion caused by Northwest's recent move to start

charging extra for the best seats

, tools like this and Seat Guru will only become more important with each passing day.