Paying for the honor
Photo: caribb on Flickr using Creative Commons
Welcome aboard. Like an aisle or window seat? That will be thirty bucks per person. Want to sit together? Same. And yes—that's for each flight, so it will cost you another thirty bucks for the return trip.
From October 7, that's the new deal on British Airways long-haul flights in coach and premium economy, if you want the privilege of choosing your exact seat when you book.
Cut to Michael O'Leary, laughing uncontrollably. O'Leary is the master of marking up tickets with a charge for almost anything extra, short of the air you breathe. Indeed, earlier this year he actually floated the idea of charging for using the toilet on his Ryanair flights. To be sure, O'Leary is a bit of a professional Irish joker, who makes outrageous, in-your-face statements simply to get publicity. For example, that if it were not for the bother of weighing them, he would like to charge fat people extra. He also suggested that business class passengers might be offered oral sex. But, as he built one of the world's most successful budget airlines, he rejoiced in sticking it to British Airways as often as he could. (In the year that ended in March, Ryanair, like other airlines, saw a huge drop in revenues but still managed to make $149m profit.)
In the end, competition from Ryanair, Easyjet, and multiplying other budget carriers in Europe forced BA to slash its prices.
Cut to Richard Branson, laughing uncontrollably.
Branson, creator of Virgin Atlantic, has waged war against BA for
years, enjoying the role of the hip upstart who found Britain's
national airline as stuffy as a duchess in a tight corset. He decided
to staff his own planes with nubile, smiling flight attendants and
cornered a loyal market of like-minded travelers. If you fly Virgin
Upper Class, the top cabin, you have been able to choose your seat on
booking for quite a while without being charged. (In its last financial
year, Virgin actually doubled its profits to $68.4m while BA made a
record loss of $401m.)
Oh, I almost forgot: If you are flying in BA's business cabin, the charge for selecting your seat when booking is a cool ninety bucks for each flight.
The airline is not stupid enough to disaffect its most loyal customers. If you are flying in first, are a frequent flyer member of the Executive Club at Gold and Silver levels, or are paying for a full fare flexible ticket, you will be able to select your seats without charge when booking.
In my own experience, BA has become a lot better as a result of competition. It's an airline with a depth of service and dependability. (And I wouldn't fly Ryanair again if you paid me). So I am perplexed by this development. And I wonder just what kind of a game will now be played between those without frequent flyer privileges who do pay the extra fees and those who opt not to pay and wait until the rest of the seats open up 24 hours before departure. Will all the choice seats have gone? It’s middle seats only then? Not a winning strategy, I would say.
More to the point, what other product asks us to shell out hundreds, even thousands of dollars without showing us what we are actually going to get in return? The seat is the most consequential choice we make on a flight. It's tiresome that seat allocation continues to be used as a lottery rather than delivered as a straightforward and transparent service. For me the model is Jet Blue, where you get a full seat map when you book and the earlier you book the better the seat you get. That's fair practice for the airline and the passengers, and it should be mandated.
Oh, I almost forgot: If you are flying in BA's business cabin, the charge for selecting your seat when booking is a cool ninety bucks for each flight.
The airline is not stupid enough to disaffect its most loyal customers. If you are flying in first, are a frequent flyer member of the Executive Club at Gold and Silver levels, or are paying for a full fare flexible ticket, you will be able to select your seats without charge when booking.
In my own experience, BA has become a lot better as a result of competition. It's an airline with a depth of service and dependability. (And I wouldn't fly Ryanair again if you paid me). So I am perplexed by this development. And I wonder just what kind of a game will now be played between those without frequent flyer privileges who do pay the extra fees and those who opt not to pay and wait until the rest of the seats open up 24 hours before departure. Will all the choice seats have gone? It’s middle seats only then? Not a winning strategy, I would say.
More to the point, what other product asks us to shell out hundreds, even thousands of dollars without showing us what we are actually going to get in return? The seat is the most consequential choice we make on a flight. It's tiresome that seat allocation continues to be used as a lottery rather than delivered as a straightforward and transparent service. For me the model is Jet Blue, where you get a full seat map when you book and the earlier you book the better the seat you get. That's fair practice for the airline and the passengers, and it should be mandated.
Leave a comment