Originally Posted by nsx
I'll add one more dislike to the OP: the current seat assignment system favors early booking low-fare passengers over late booking high-fare passengers. The legacies have seating preferences for high-mileage customers and sometimes upgrades for full fare. Southwest has a system that frequent customers know how to work to get a good seat virtually every time. On the Southwest forum, people debate ad infinitum which is better. But JetBlue has neither of these systems and puts its highest-paying customers in themiddle seats. That's bad business, IMHO.
I don't have a solution to propose, but I'm sure there are several viable options. Boarding speed seems not to be an issue as it would be for Southwest, because JetBlue turns in my limited experience require at least 45 minutes.
AirTran's system seems to work ok IMHO.
If you buy way in advance at the bargain basement prices you don't get to pick your seat until 24 hours before the flight. If on the other hand you bought at the non-bargain basement price you get to pick you seat right then.
I haven't ever gotten to bad of a seat when I buy at the bargain basement price, but then again FL's fleet is like 80% 717s so ther's only like 30 middle seats on the aircraft to begin with.