Originally Posted by
ChinaMeng
Charging for assigned seating will lead to too many arguments or fights between people who paid an extra $10 but were running late, and the people who chose the seat Southwest-style. The policy of saying "if you're late, you lose it" will not stop people who paid extra money from pursuing their right to their seat.
That's what I was thinking too. They'll really piss people off if the person pays the extra $10 or whatever and then get his assigned seat taken away from him cuz he was in the bathroom. If they assign seats, they might have to assign ALL seats, just give the best ones to the people that pay an extra $10. Then again, that will alienate all the current "elite" customers who currently know how to get good seats using whatever personal trick they use. I think nsx said it best when he said something to the gist of: "The current situation works best for everybody, the people who actually care about getting a good seat get on the Internet 24 hours beforehand and/or use their personal tricks to get a decent seat even if in B/C boarding groups. The people who don't really care one way or another are the people that are in the C boarding group anyways". No sense changing the system if it ain't broke. Although if charging $10 to some sucker will keep my ticket prices lower, I'm all for it (as long as I still have the ability to get myself an open seating using whatever tricks I might have up my sleeve). I read an article recently that said the savviest shoppers should be all for the places that nickle and dime customers. The savvy customers benefit with lower prices that are subsidized by the suckers that pay all the nickel and dime fees...............................^