Seat reservation fees increase
 

Yes it's a well-thrashed topic on the forum. But essentially frequent-flyers like you'll find on FT are generally in favour of it because it means that their Silver/Gold cards allow them to reserve good seats for free even when booking at short notice for work, whereas on other airlines the good seats would've been snapped up months in advance.


Whereas 'visitors' to BA tend to have their noses put out of joint, having just forked out a large amount for business class, and thus come on to the forum to rant about it and claim that BA 'have lost their business'.
This is despite the fact they obviously didn't get much of their business, considering they're a Club-class traveller but don't even have a Bronze card !

The first time I flew CW I noticed that I would have to pay for seat selection and decided I wouldn't bother. I had no status at all at the time with BA and just saw it is part of their pricing structure. Every airline has their oddities, and we just need to live with it. In the end I got the seat I had wanted at OLCI anyway (probably because it was one of those 'secret' good seats that only FT followers know about ...).

London Air Travel covered the seating price changes in an article it published last week.

https://londonairtravel.com/2019/05/...harge-changes/

You think they 'forgot' to take that into account in their formulas??!

If income from seat selection goes down , then it may reconsider ; if it improves income, then I would expect it to stay

If people think that sitting near the front is worth paying extra for, then BA will happily take their money

Not sure how this is a desperate act

For the in-frequent long-haul traveller like me, why chase status when you can pay for (pretty much) the seat you want?

Whereas almost every airline now offers paid seating options in Y, has a single airline in the world followed suit in charging for pre-booking seats in Business?

I did get Hong Kong Airlines try and charge for a Business Class Emergency Exit on their shortlived all Business LGW-HKG (declined - and I saw as ridiculous as load factor was about 15%).

But I havn't come across a single airline charging for specific regular seating in Business. Anyone?

The flipside is that for those passengers who have status with BA, the seat map may be pretty open even when booking close to the departure date (putting theoretical seating aside).

Being an FT reader and for a while OW Sapphire, I at least understand the goal of protecting good seats for elites. I disagree with it though because to me, part of the benefit of J travel is the "all inclusive" product. And first come first served has worked for the other airlines.

I like CW aisle seats to be honest, but I chose to fly DL/AF for my next trip because for +$100 in fare, I was able to select seats on four legs for two of us.

As much as free seat selection would be ideal, BA has got a really good case for charging ridiculous amounts for it.

With other airlines (and I'll use Cathay Pacific as an example) they fly 1-2-1 cabins from HKG to JFK. If you want a window/aisle seat, you'll probably get one at the airport. There's no (relatively) large benefit from being in the front/rear of the cabin. They charge for seat selection for deep discount economy fares for non status/ruby passengers.

British Airways have (premium) economy layouts across the cabin (2-4-2; 2-3-2) where there are seats (such as 64K on the UD of the 747) that people really want. If BA can operate high density cabins anyway, then it'll be somewhat silly as it leaking revenue for them.