AA flights blocking "regular" economy seats for non-elites?
Jul 8, 2015, 7:11 am
#46
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With fewer flights and packed planes there are fewer window and aisle seats to go around, particularly MCE and/or front of Y. AA/DL/UA know there are business travelers like me booking <48 hours and paying a pretty penny to do so. So AA holds back window/aisle seats for flyers like me. Choices for infrequent FFs, often buying on price alone, naturally have to be limited if there are to be more open "desirable" seats for FFs. I would say in most cases AA can and will make sure that at least one parent is seated next to their small child. A brood of little ones makes the situation difficult, and if its important to the parents, they should pay the extra seat fee. Like it or not, its where the industry is going and there is zero evidence that it will change back the other way, anytime soon. I understand that flying on the aggregate for a family isn't cheap-but think what it would have cost back in 1972 to fly a family of four to Disney World.
Jul 8, 2015, 7:49 am
#47
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My point is merely that giving away unbundled products for free to cost-driven leisure buyers undermines the concept of de-frilling for that segment while retaining perks, even up to the last minute, for the higher value segments.
Jul 8, 2015, 9:48 am
#48
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I agree. While the "family" may be paying a lot by virtue of booking multiple seats, the revenue per seat to AA from the family is likely less than that from filling those seats with business travelers.
Jul 8, 2015, 10:24 am
#49
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Isn't this more of a "what have you done for me lately" attitude? Yes, there is no guarantee of future business, but you can pretty much kiss that goodbye if you tick them off now. Business needs to grow and that includes cultivating future customers. Sure, if you're the only game in town, then you don't need to worry too much, but as long as there is a choice, you have to consider where your future customers will be coming from. IBM wasn't giving computers to schools to be good world citizens, they were grooming new customers. If you grew up flying AA, where do you think you'd look when you need to pick an airline?
Jul 8, 2015, 5:43 pm
#50
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People who travel for business sometimes travel with their families as well. Obviously the calculus is different for Plats and above, because they're able to select MCE for their family. But the infrequent business traveler who may be asked to occasionally fly on expensive last minute tickets will probably not choose the airline that picked her up by the ankles and shook her down for every last penny when she took her family to Grandma's last summer.
Jul 8, 2015, 8:45 pm
#52
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With only so many seats on an a/c AA has to balance needs of paxs. I fly 1-2 round trips a week usually spending at least $800 rt (because of my type of work I can never book a flight more than 48 hours out and often same day). So an EXP booking expensive flights is more valuable and AA understandably doesn't want me constantly sitting in 32E. Its economics, plain and simple.
Jul 10, 2015, 7:17 pm
#53
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For what it's worth, BA do allow advance seat selection to non-elites... for a fee. The situation is much the same: if you want to be sure you'll have adjacent seats, best to pay for the privilege. Because so many people choose seats at check-in, it's likely that a family could choose adjacent seats if they check in right at 24 hours, however I've seen some short-haul flights (especially LCY flights with small planes) where check-in opens 24 hours early and all seats have an adjacent seat taken. It's even more common that there are no empty rows of 3 at check-in for short haul flights....
Jul 10, 2015, 10:54 pm
#54
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They also block seats on more "business" flights than leisure routes. For example, most of the seats on the back of the 738 were open on a JFK-MCO flight, where as they only had a couple of rows open in the back of the 738 on a LGA-DFW flight.
Jul 12, 2015, 4:26 pm
#55
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It's worth nothing that, since November, AA has been running a program which automatically assigns adjacent seats to families free of charge. The program runs 24-72 hours in advance and will assign Preferred and elite-blocked seats if there are no free seats available. It's not always successful in finding adjacent seats, but it has greatly reduced the number of families being split up and has reduced the workload of the gate agents.
The amount of seats blocked for elites can vary based on the route, time, and day of the week. For example, weekend flights generally have fewer blocked seats since there's less business travel.
As an elite, I appreciate that AA takes the effort to make sure that even if I book a flight only a few days in advance, I can still get a decent seat.
^ Generally the last row and the first non-premium row are blocked for use by airport agents in accommodating families with small children. This is why you'll never see row 18 or 30 on a 737 available for selection in advance, for example.
^ The system logic is to keep multiple passengers together. I've seen it assign adjacent paid seats for free at check-in when the alternative would've been to split the party into separate standard seats.
^ Gate agents are miracle workers and virtually always find a solution to this problem.
As an elite, I appreciate that AA takes the effort to make sure that even if I book a flight only a few days in advance, I can still get a decent seat.
Then I suppose the next question is: given how adamant you are about how this DOES affect other customers, what data to you have to back this up? People on travel boards love to wring their hands over the poor hypothetical children hypothetically sitting all by their hypothetical selves. Does this ever happen to children that are too young to hack it on their own? In my experience, airlines have always managed to either find volunteers or move other passengers by fiat in order to accommodate families, so this argument always seems to peter out into nonsense hypotheticals.
Jul 12, 2015, 7:37 pm
#56
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I didn't see this suggestion so sorry if this has been mentioned, but it seems like you're biggest issue is with having to pay for 2 premium seats instead of just pay for one premium seat next to the middle seat that the other person would book. You could potentially book one MCE seat and trade with someone next to your traveling partner in the back. You wouldn't get the MCE seat, but at least you'd get to sit together paying for only one premium seat.