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Once a free perk, many airlines now charge for advanced seat selection

by George Hobica on Mar 26, 2010

A recent Airfarewatchdog poll revealed that after checked bag fees, the most hated airline fee is the one extracted for advanced seat selection. This used to be entirely free, but no more.

Say you log on to JetBlue’s Web site to book a flight. You choose one, you select a seat you like – paying $10 or more per leg for more room up front or in an exit row. Bang. You’re done.

Now try doing the same on Delta.com – what, you want an exit row? You want to sit up front? Better have your SkyMiles number handy.

Got none? Back of the bus, sir.

Let’s say you’re on the Web once more, surfing the site of Denver-based low-fare flyer Frontier. Here, you book the lowest fare available – clever you! – there will be no getting anywhere near a seating plan, let alone any selecting of favorite aisle seats up front. Not until 24 hours before takeoff, you won’t – and then, let’s hope that all that’s left isn’t the dreaded middle seat.
Still, things could be worse – there’s Allegiant Air, which charges between $4.99 and $24.99 to anyone – anyone – who wants to get near a seat map before the day of flight. Leaving you, of course, to wonder if that Orlando flight you paid $39.99 for is going to be the worst of your life, sandwiched between two terrifyingly loud, sugar-charged children who’ve never been to Disney World (and are also recovering from nasty colds, cough cough.) Unless, of course, you cough up.

These days, flyers who don’t like surprises ought to take heed when booking a flight. Rare is the airline with an advance seat selection process that mirrors any other; what seems so sensible for one (open up the whole thing, charge an arm and a leg for the really good stuff and bring in a nice chunk of change per flight) seems so difficult for others to grasp (Southwest, which clings to its no-seat-assignments-ever rule, which its loyal customers continue to pretend to not mind.)

Policies all over the place

While it can seem as if there’s no rhyme or reason to the way each airline handles the divvying up of seats on its planes, there actually is. If you take a look at this chart, which goes over the current seat selection rules for 16 airlines, a pattern emerges – legacy carriers such as Delta and American continue to try and please their frequent flyers first, holding back the best seats (among them, exit rows) for their most loyal customers. Those that are new, new-ish or focused on low fares (and less on loyalty) tend to be a bit of a free-for-all.

Some of the legacy carriers like United, want to have it all. They want to please their long-time customers, but they also find the lure of making a buck off of premium seating too much to ignore.

Thus, on United, you have Economy Plus, featuring five more inches of legroom in the upfront rows on all domestic and international flights. Elite frequent fliers are generally given these seats automatically. However, anyone can buy in, based on availability – rates start at $9 and go up to $109 for long-haul flights. United even sells a $425 annual Economy Plus pass, ensuring you’ll always have more legroom.

Other airlines that have resisted making such bold changes are now giving in; Continental, for example, recently announced a similar program, where premium seats (including exit rows) will be made available for a fee for those who want to log on within 24 hours of departure and select them; the airline has said these seats will not be available for purchase at the airport. When last we tried, attempting to select an exit row seat within 24 hours of departure on a Continental flight yields nothing more than a rollover message instructing you to “request at check-in.” But unless they’ve changed their minds, this is probably fixed by now.

	Earliest available	Charge?	Can you pre book an exit row?	Premium Services
Airtran	During booking, before purchase	$6-$20	$20, book anytime	Upgrades to business class available at set prices
Alaska	During booking, before purchase	No	Yes	Some seats at front of economy section and aisle seats for premium customers
Allegiant	During booking, before purchase	$4.99 to $24.99	Yes, for a fee	No
American	During booking, before purchase	No	Reserved for premium customers	Some seats at front of economy section and aisle seats for premium customers
British Airways	Free at check in or from 24 hours before departure	Depends on class of service; For international economy and domestic UK, £10/$15 to chose seats from time of booking up to check-in, 24 hours before departure up to £60/$90 for other classes of service (First Class free)	£50/$75 for economy/World Traveller Plus	N/A
Continental	During booking, before purchase	No	Request at check in	Some premium seats available for a fee (including exit rows), book within 24 hours of departure online only
Delta	During booking, before purchase	No	Reserved for premium customers	Some seats at front of economy section and aisle seats for premium customers
Frontier	Lowest economy fares limited to 24 hours before flight, more expensive fares anytime	No	Request at check in	First few rows with extra legroom free to some frequent flyer members; $15-$25 for others
Hawaiian	During booking, before purchase	No	Request at check in	No, but upgrades available for sale
JetBlue	During booking, before purchase	No	Yes, from $10, depending on flight length	“Even more room” includes exit row and more spacious seats at front, from $10
Midwest	During booking, before purchase	No	Request at check in	Some roomier front seats sold for a set fee which depends on flight length
Southwest	At boarding	No	No	$10 for preferred boarding (“Group A”)
Spirit	During booking, before purchase	$5 and up depending on route	Yes, for a fee	Upgrades to “Big Front Seat” from $25 per flight
United	During booking, before purchase	No	Request at check in	Economy Plus offers more leg room from $9 per flight
US Air	During on line check in	No	Request at check in	Some aisle and front of plane seats $5-$20, buy online from 24 hours in advance
Virgin America	During booking, before purchase	No	Sold as “Main Cabin Select” seats for hefty fees	Exit rows and bulkheads sold as “Main Cabin Select” for variable fees, includes free premium TV and meals

George Hobica is the founder of Airfarewatchdog™, the most inclusive source of airfare deals that have been researched and verified by experts. Airfarewatchdog compares fares from all airlines and includes the increasing number of airline-site-only and promo code fares.

Where did all the bargain fares to Europe go?

by George Hobica on Mar 16, 2010

Will this be the summer of our discontent when we search for cheap airfares to Europe? Is the party over?

In January 2009, US Air kicked off the summer selling season with tax-included fares for peak summer travel to Europe in the $500’s and $600’s but that was nothing compared to the $200 and $300 fares that appeared later in the spring and summer.

But that was last year. The winter just ending is the first time in memory that we didn’t see dead-of-winter deals to Europe. In winters past, the airlines went into panic mode, selling fares for February travel for as low as $250 or $300 round-trip including taxes, even on nonstops from New York to Paris. This winter, however, fares remained stubbornly stuck in the $600’s, $700’s and even $800’s to most destinations, although there were a few fleeting $500 bargains to such places as Dublin, Barcelona and Madrid.

Even Frankfurt, typically the cheapest gateway to the Continent, saw no amazing deals as in past winters.

So what’s going on here, and how does this bode for travel this spring and summer?

Of course, only fools dare to predict how an irrational airline industry will react, so we’ll steer clear of hard and fast prognostication. However, the bargain-less winter does not give us much hope.
But we will say this: many European governments have increased airport taxes, as outlined in this New York Times article on the subject, which reports that a $458 fare from New York to London recently came saddled with $162 in taxes and government fees.

And it may only get worse. The British government, for example, currently adds an Air Passenger Duty of £45 in economy class, but this will rise to £60 on Nov. 1, and £90 on business and first class fares, scheduled to increase to £120 on the same day.

In addition, many airlines have cut capacity and grounded jets for the duration, which will put pressure on fares. Last July, British Airways announced it would slash winter capacity by 4-5%, grounding over a dozen planes.

Adding to our misery, the weak dollar has enticed bargain-hunting Europeans to visit the U.S. Those shopping bag-toting hordes are driving up demand and fares along with it, taking seats that we were hoping to get for next to nothing.

Currently, spring and summer fares to most European destinations are running in the $900 to $1500 range, including tax. That’s still less than what we saw in summer 2008, when it wasn’t unusual to cough up $1900 and $2000 on economy class fares for peak July and August dates. Even so, we would be very surprised if at some point there isn’t a brief, hit-and-run sale on some routes. So our only advice is to sign up for fare alerts (http://www.airfarewatchdog.com/fare-alerts/) and jump if such a sale does come to pass.

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Lies, damned lies, and airfare statistics

by George Hobica on Jan 12, 2010

Recently, I was asked by a news service if Airfarewatchdog would be interested in providing airfare statistics on various routes to compare average airfares from month to month and year to year.

I don’t think this was the answer they were hoping for, but this is what I told them:

It’s really, really hard to get accurate, meaningful airfare statistics. In fact, it’s pretty much impossible. There are so many different types of fares sold, such as consolidator (bucket), corporate, and negotiated fares, in addition to published airfares. And airlines do not divulge, for competitive reasons, how many seats they actually sell at what fares on what routes. The airlines’ published fares are public record, and they do report overall revenue figures for the airline as whole, but ticketed fares route by route, or airport by airport? My friends who are airline insiders tell me it’d never happen.

As Singapore Airlines spokesperson James Boyd explains, “When an airline launches a sale, it’s an attempt to grab market share. An airline would never publicize how many seats were sold at what price on what routes, because it would give competitors too much information.”

The best one can do is to compile sales data from large ticket sellers, such as Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz, route by route, and figure out what consumers actually paid for their tickets over various time periods. Still, this data will not include all fares sold to the public (in addition to the fare types mentioned above, airlines are increasingly selling special promo code fares on their own web sites in order to drive web traffic and undercut the third party online agencies). And none of the online travel agencies sell Southwest Airlines’ or Allegiant Airlines’ fares, so that’s another missing piece of the puzzle.Most importantly, beware of anyone offering fare statistics if they do not sell seats. There is a huge difference between published fares and ticketed fares.

“Sold versus published does provide a better window into the real world,” confirms airline industry consultant Bob Harrell of New York City-based Harrell Associates. “It’s just harder to get [the] data.”

For example, in January American published fares from Delta’s US hubs to Lima, Peru for $330 return, including all taxes. These routes are normally twice that or even higher. A source that merely tracks the ups and downs in published airfares might report that fares on that route came down over 50% in January 2009. But is that accurate? How many seats were sold at $330 during this unadvertised sale? How many at $500? How many at $600? How many were sold through consolidators on that route in January? Just because the published fare went down to $330 for a brief period, doesn’t mean that the average fare on that route paid by consumers was $330. There’s simply no way of really telling, unless you can aggregate data from each airline serving the route, and the airlines are not going to share this information, because it will give competitors too much information.

As a journalist, it makes me cringe when I see a news report stating that “Airfares went down 15% year over year,” without revealing the methodology for determining that statistic and all sources providing data. Was that published fares or ticketed fares? If ticketed, what was the source? If published, how was the statistic calculated? And did this include taxes and all ancillary fees paid by passengers on that route, from that airport, or during that time frame? Unless a source or journalist shares all this background information, airfare statistics are, if not exactly lies, meaningless and misleading.

Come fly the polite skies

by George Hobica on Dec 21, 2009

I have a request.

Can’t we all just get along up in the air? Can’t we be just a little-no, make that a lot-more polite?

Consider: I was sitting in first class on a recent flight (yes, I used miles to upgrade) and the guy next to me flagged down a passing flight attendant by shaking his half empty highball glass at her. “More ice!” he bellowed. To which she replied, rather sweetly under the circumstances, “What’s the magic word!” To which he more or less replied, “Don’t try to teach me manners, just get me more ice.” (I mean, really, can you believe this jerk? What is it with some airline passengers thinking they’re grand poobahs just because they bought a $200 airfare and upgraded it with miles?) So the flight attendant answered him, “Sir, the ice is in the galley. Get it yourself.” If I didn’t have to sit next to this bozo for another two hours, I would have shouted out “woo hoo!”. And had I been she, I would have omitted the “sir.’

My seat mate was lucky that all he got was a well-deserved come-uppance. John Reed, a customer on American Airlines flight 614 from Sacramento to Dallas on December 6, had a less pleasant encounter with a flight attendant. As reported extensively in the blogosphere, Mr. Reed, a first class passenger with executive platinum frequent flyer status, asked a flight attendant for a glass of orange juice, was excoriated for doing so (“I guess you don’t know how this works,” she reportedly told him), and ended up getting a written FAA misconduct notification from the pilot. Reed and his fellow first class passengers all insist that the flight attendant was completely out of line and perhaps mentally unstable, and American has issued an apology to all those affected.Of course we weren’t on that flight, so we don’t know whether or not Reed used the magic word when asking for his OJ, but even if he didn’t, by all accounts the flight attendant’s behavior was bizarre and inexcusable.

Even so, I often find the rudeness of airline passengers equally bizarre. When asked, “Can I get you something to drink sir (or ma’am)” by a flight attendant (or by a waiter for that matter), it is not acceptable to bark out “Coke” without looking up from your Sudoku. It’s not acceptable in the air, and frankly, it’s not acceptable on the ground, either. But especially not in the air. Flight attendants are trained to save your life if there’s an incident. Flying is stressful for all concerned. We’re stuck together in an aluminum can, sometimes for six hours or more. This is not a flying McDonald’s.

And it is not acceptable when handed your beverage to skip the “thank you.” You are not the Sultan of Siam. She is not your girl. I think flyers should all take a lesson from my mother, who, when we flew together, laid down certain rules of decorum. “Georgie,” she would remind me near the end of each flight, “when we leave the plane you are to say thank you to the pilot and stewardesses.” To this day, I never fail to do so.

Not that all the politeness in the world will save you from the wrath of a flight attendant gone bonkers, and times have changed drastically since my first transcontinental flight with mom, on a TWA 707, as a bowtie-clad 10 year old.

On that flight, my mother suggested I help the stewardesses clear the meal trays, which task I gamely performed (after all, one of them had pinned plastic wings on my blazer, so I was crew, right?). In recognition of my valorous service, one of the stews pinched my chubby little cheek and said, “Oh what a nice little boy you are.” And then I got to ride up with the pilots for a thrilling half hour. As I said, things have changed.

Fast forward to a flight a few years ago when I was sitting in the back of a Continental Airline’s 737 waiting in vain for a meal tray to be removed. Needing a lav visit, I got up and placed the tray on an empty counter in the galley, where the flight attendants were busy gabbing away about whatever. “You can’t put that there!” one of them barked at me. Shell-shocked, but ignoring her, I went into the loo and upon emerging looked her in the eye and said, “You know, you could have said that a bit more politely.” She, indignantly: “I wasn’t impolite.” Me, equally indignant: “Oh yes you were, and you know it.” Luckily I guess, I didn’t get one of those FAA warning letters, but while I’m all for politesse in the skies, modern airline travel is fraught enough as it is, and it does take two to maintain a civil atmosphere. I’m willing to do my part. I wish more people were willing to do theirs.