Originally Posted by
WorldLux
Assigned Seating has been done by most European airlines for as long as I can remember. The exception was free seating. What is happening these last couples of years is, that airlines offering seat reservations started to charge for reservations.
Yup, and sometimes exorbitantly high fares for it, though the low costs such as Wizz Air only charge a couple of euros which I think is very reasonable and although I never needed it, I would do it if I wanted to.
I know free seating waas only done on budget carriers, but why did they do it in the first place if it's not profitable.
- Geographically impractical
- Different countries => different regulations regarding air travel making a A-B-C route considerably more complex to the airline than A-B and A-C
- As soon as you cross the extiror borders of Schengen, you'll need to clear to plane, have everybody cleared by immigration, have them reboard the plane.
- Unattractive with passengers.
- Much more complicated. Most European airlines try to get their crews back to base. With an A-B-C route, passengers might end up having to overnight somewhere.
Those services are essentially only useful for domestic flights within large countries.
But isn't Europe within Schengen like one large country for any air travel purposes. The only problem is , indeed, if you fly outside of schengen.
The Schengen zone is smaller than, say, brazil or the Us, but still large enough. Within schengen pax wouldn't have to leave the plane during a stop. And anyone can fly from anywhere to anywhere within Schengen. From Sweden to Portugal and from Ireland to Greece, it's all still Schengen.