Originally Posted by
mpkz
To me it looks more like this applies until check in, not boarding
Exactly, it has to be just poor wording. Currently the theoretical seating algorithm is all the time finding the best suitable seats for everyone. If one passenger checks in and chooses a certain seat, the algorithm re-calculates the optimal seating for all the passengers who at that moment have not yet been assigned a seat.
But once you check in and have a boarding pass, that seat is not going to change except for operational reasons such as plane change. Otherwise it would be a chaos during boarding.
Originally Posted by
the810
The issue is that Finnair applies this even to "expensive tickets", i.e. Classic fare. No one else does that, even Ryanair has a free seat selection on all fare types except the cheapest one.
Neither am I aware of any airline that charges business class passengers for seat selection at check-in.
Good point about business class seating going random with light tickets as well. That's not good. Even less reason to book business class.
And to be fair LCCs like Ryanair often charge just a couple of euros for a regular seat whereas Finnair charges much more.