Why no more free seating airlines in Europe?
I was wondering
up until a few years ago, Ryan Air and Wizz Air had Free Seating. This caused everyone to scrum at the boarding gate and rush onto the plane, and choose their own seats. No complaints for not being able to sit next to each other because it's just first come first serve, right? And everyone would be at the plane early, so very easy for the airline. No latecomers as they would end up with a bad seat.
So why did all european airlines (that I know of) change to Assigned Seating? Because carriers such as SouthWest in the US still, to my knowledge, do free seating.
Does anyone recall if you could also pick emergency exit/bulkhead seats when there used to be free seating or did you have to reserve those in advance?