I think that's actually a complicated issue, surprising as this may seem. Imagine a restaurant publishes on its website "We are open Monday to Friday 9-5 and Saturdays 9-1". If the restaurant is also open Sundays, there is an ordinary sense in which the website is mistaken, that it is not correct. If you were the business owner, or a customer, you'd complain that whoever did the website messed it up. I don't think I have a view on whether, strictly speaking, the restaurant/Air Canada website is mistaken, as I think it involves all kind of complicated issues in the semantics of implicature that I don't know much about (this is an actual field of study). But it seems right that it's mistaken in this ordinary sense of having messed up, it's misleading in the sense that an ordinary reader would take the website to mean by implicature that it's not open Sundays/that SEs don't get free preferred seats on basic fares.

This sucks big things from my perspective. I always looked forward to A220 flights (and even CRJs) so I could select 2x2 at check-in for the four of us.

Someone mentioned Ryanair. Say what you will about them but:

Emphasis mine.

Not only at check-in, but at the time of booking too. Boo, Air Canada!

AC already does that at time of booking.

I booked a flight for family members travelling with a young child.
Booked basic fare, couldn't select seat at booking, but I received an email within a day or two telling me that seats have been reserved for them.

It looks like this, it's not "free seat selection", but at lease you won't be separated with your kids unless you pay them to.
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/atta...1&d=1714079993

Yes, they assign you free seats together in the last row of the airplane. Which is fine, tbh, it's a freebie. Changing that costs price of seat times number of passengers, regardless of age.

​​​​My point was how sad it is that Ryanair is actually better than AC in this regard.

I don't think AC even offers seat selection, at least in the app, at the time of booking.

If you mean pre-OLCI, this is what I get when I move the wife and 2 kids (under 11) from our pre-assigned seats. Regular seat prices for the this flight are $21.

Ryanair will charge only the $21, and will not tell you they applied a "promotion" code.
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...a7c8c8e44d.jpg

​​​​​

Ryanair still makes you pay one seat selection fee. AC will assign seats together for free. FR only offers this for children up to 11. For AC, it's 13. You can argue that FR's is better, but for those who want to spend the minimum number of dollars possible, the AC approach might be preferable.

AC offers what they're required to under Canadian regulations (and, as far as I can tell, slightly more, since they seem to consistently seat families next to each other rather than slightly separated as permitted under the regulation).

I don't know what regulations apply to FR in this respect.

Seems everyone missed the joke here.

FR's policy is definitely better if you don't want to sit by the toilets. Cow's response seemed to suggest that you can get the same buy one, get kids free on AC. Not the case.

Good write up on princeoftravel.
Comments even better.

https://princeoftravel.com/news/air-...y-at-check-in/

No, I was trying to say that they will assign you seats together at time of booking (or within 48 hours or whatever it is) absolutely free.

I am aware of the limitations around that, but I also don't think it's unreasonable to ask you to pay for specific seats you want if you've booked a low fare brand.

Even weeks/months after it was agreed that this was not to be the case during the sale?

I was laughing.

No, I think everyone is in agreement that this is unacceptable.

Glass half full?
 

Depending on how the random seat allocation is implemented, does this make it somewhat more likely that middle seats close to the front of the cabin will stay empty?

Well that lasted long.

They've paused it already.

https://princeoftravel.com/news/air-...y-at-check-in/