WR Cage

I suspect other seat restrictions for these fare types will be:
- Pax must call the airline within 72 hours for seat assignmen (this will not be a checkin or gate issue).
- If acceptable seats are not available, pax must be offered a different flight or refund of original airfare (most situations a family vacation will not be ticketed with less than 21 days before departure).
- For IROPS or cancelled flight options, the family will either be required to forgo the rule (split seat assignments) or take the next available flight with required number of seats allocated.

Often1

While I suppose that there is always the remote possibility that there really is a person who has a lifelong desire to sit in a middle seat in the last row with no recline, the fact is that it is almost always possible to move someone and not force the involuntary loss of a great seat.

This happens for the most part every day anyway and the carrier reaction will simply be to hold a few more seats open for assignment to the gate.

WR Cage

David Neelenan, when he was CEO of Jetblue, used to fly middle seat last row of the A320 to demonstrate commitment to pax comfort and guest experience.

peasant

Hearing that SWA has lobbied successfully to be exempt - i.e. the regulation will only apply to airlines that assign seats

jrl767

note also the statutory language that says (emphasis added) "... shall review and, if appropriate, establish a policy ..."

having worked in and around US Government policy offices for 15+ years, that's a loophole big enough to accommodate an A380 and all 600+ pax on it

tjl

Wouldn't WN's policy of having family boarding between the A and B groups (i.e. between #60 and #61) for those who are not in the A group (#1 to #60) mean that families with small children would find it very unlikely that they will be unable to seat an adult next to a small child without flight attendant assistance?

rickg523

I wonder if this is a misinterpretation. Obviously, WN will be exempt from the "no-charge" provision, since they don't charge for the seat in addition to the transit. And they are in better shape than most because they allow some family boarding when the plane is less than half full. But Family Boarding doesn't cover children over 4 yo. So I think they'll still be obliged to accommodate families with older kids if necessary. Depending of course on the final wording of the regulation.

pinniped

I'm more interested in this United "budget economy" fare. Was it akin to a ULCC fare (very low - far, far lower than a regular discounted Y fare), or just a few bucks lower than the normal restricted fare you'd regularly see on the route?

I know all of the legacies have talked about rolling these out. I'm kind of interested in how they do it. We have routes out of MCI where there are two operators - a ULCC and a legacy. The fare difference between the two can often be 10x. (A $40 round-trip vs. a $400 round-trip isn't uncommon.) It'll be interesting to see how far into that gap the legacies decide to move, as well as how much they intend to make the whole experience "ULCC-like".

tjl

How does the experience at an ULCC differ from that at a legacy airline when one has no frequent flyer status on that airline or alliance, and one books a lowest cost economy ticket?

pinniped

- Tighter seats (as little as 28" pitch)
- No free seat assignments at all
- Carry-on limited to what will fit under your seat
- Little/no irrops support or rebooking to other carriers
- Little/no interlining baggage
- Potentially no precheck arrangement with TSA
- No free food/bev service
- No FFP...or one that is so useless there might as well not be one
- Very high additional charges for booking online or via phone - often in excess of 100% of the price of the ticket

(My limited ULCC experience is Spirit. I may be missing some lovely "features" of Allegiant or Frontier here.)

So my question is: how many of these would United or American try to implement with their "budget economy" fares?

- I don't think they'll put Economy-Minus-Minus into their planes. You'll still get a 31" seat.
- They will copy the "no seat assignment" thing. Expect a middle in the back.
- They'd have to overhaul a lot of procedures to prohibit (or charge for) overhead bin bags for these fares when most of the passengers are on fares that permit these bags, so I don't think that will happen.
- You'll go to the bottom of the queue for irrops support.
- My guess is that they won't bother to prohibit interlining. Kind of a niche case involving two PNRs, as none of the "budget" fares sound like they'll be alliance-wide.
- I assume you'd get Precheck like with any other fare.
- I assume you'd get a your usual four ounces of Coke onboard.
- Probably no miles.
- Doubt a legacy would charge extra for using their site (as that's the method they'd actually prefer we use), but I could see 'em doing a credit card surcharge, assuming they're transacting the charge in a state where this is now legal.

So in my $40 vs. $400 example, I would value the "budget" fare on a legacy somewhat higher than the $40. There *are* some valuable advantages to being on the bigger carrier. It's just a question of how much more. If I saw this fare for $250, I'd probably buy Spirit. If I saw it for $100, I'd probably buy United. But there are still a lot of assumptions and unknown details to be clarified...

Boraxo

Many booking engines (e.g. orbitz) already ask customers to list passengers under 18, etc. Should not be too difficult for airlines to tweak website to require this information (just as they require birth date for international travel) and to then force customer to buy up to a fare with reserved seat assignments.

Of course we all know how competent the IT team is at UA/sarc.

tjl

Like what Air Canada does? If you buy the lowest economy fare, you do not get a seat assignment at booking (unless you pay extra). You may get a seat assignment at check in (if you check in early enough). Otherwise, you may wait until you get to the gate to get a seat assignment.

belfordrocks

No, you still get assigned a seat at some point before you get onto the door. No assigned seating is akin to getting on a public bus - you do not know where you will sit until you get onto the aircraft.

MSPeconomist

On many routes, DL basic economy fares are about $10-20 lower than the cheapest regular coach fare DL offers in the market.

StartinSanDiego

Moderator Note: Please focus the conversation to the topic of the DOT ruling on Family Seating. Thanks