Virgin to charge £25 seat selection fee for Economy

[Neil]

Have picked up on a few rumours that VS will be introducing a £25pp fee for selection selection for Y pax for new bookings from 1st April.

Nothing mentioned about W or J pax, and while this isn't confirmed it does fall in to line with what a lot of us have been expecting for a while from VS now.

Seems reasonable to me, after all the travelling public are mugs with deep pockets, right? v( v(

Although no doubt a revenue maker it would have been nice if VS did not do the norm and was able to use this as a selling point y)

Or just back your slogan "flying in the face of ordinary" ^) ^)

[Darren Wheeler]

Probably following the BA approach. Free within 24 hours of the scheduled departure, charge if any earlier unless Silver or Gold.

Hmmm, as you say Neil if true it's not unexpected. VS are making heavy losses and charging for seat requests would be easy money.

Needless to say this raises many questions!

What might they charge in PE & UC? BA CW is £60-£80 so something in that range would seem logical for UC.

What would they offer as a sweetener to AG & AU members? Will they revert to free seat requests from time of booking for AU and ditch T-90?

Will AG stay at T-90 or be restricted to as close as T-7, in line with BAEC Bronze?

And will they charge for Little Red too? BA charge £8 for domestic seat requests IIRC. But with LR struggling to put bums on seats as it is that could be commercial suicide.

I would pay if I had to in economy, there is no way I would fly if I had to sit in a none aisle seat long haul.
I think £15 for EC £20 PE and £45 UC are acceptable, with maybe £22/30/55 for OZ routes.

It's just economy for now and just long haul. I guess it does guarantee the seat whereas before it was just a request. Think you'll be able to pay for and select extra leg room seats at time of booking too.

I'm divided on this. On one hand, VS needs the extra revenue. On the other hand, it does seem a bit "budget" to bring in additional charges while bandying around petitions about APD.

Also, knowing VS IT, this is going to cause a lot of grief both for them and pax.

[preiffer]

It's just economy for now and just long haul. I guess it does guarantee the seat whereas before it was just a request. Think you'll be able to pay for and select extra leg room seats at time of booking too.

Actually, it doesn't "guarantee" the seat. If the aircraft is substituted, they will still be doing movements. Granted, with less people to move (since less will put money up for their seat request) but there is still no guarantee.

[Darren Wheeler]

For comparison, some other airlines that charge for "Advance Reserved Seating" on long-haul

Air Canada
Air France (seats such as exit rows and upper deck)
BA
Malaysian
Thomas Cook

It's just economy for now and just long haul. I guess it does guarantee the seat whereas before it was just a request. Think you'll be able to pay for and select extra leg room seats at time of booking too.

Thank you for clarifying - so it's confirmed then.

For those who pay, will they still have to wait until T-90 before they can request a seat? And will AU/AG have to pay?

Wonder if it'll do something to improve the dire current situation with customers losing their seat requests. The VS Facebook page has gone ballistic in recent months with this seemingly being a #1 issue with VS standard "it was only ever a request response" every time. Yet other airlines don't appear to have a problem with next to no complaints?

To be honest I wouldn't mind paying for seat requests in Y ( I would however in PE and UC), I just hope VS do it right. If I were to pay £25 to reserve my seat I would be pretty annoyed if all the seats were not available I.e the upper deck and the front rows on the lower deck. I also wonder how this will work for VH.

It's a cheap act that has no place in a full service airline.

Another charge to inflate the already sky high costs of flying. Just confirms to me that VS are just another airline now with no pressing reason to choose them ahead of the others. Sad but inevitable decline to ordinary IMHO

I just posted this question on their Facebook page:-

Is it true that from April 14 VA is going to start charging £25 pp to make a seat request?
If true how is that "Flying in the face of ordinary" and not "Just coming into line with what everyone else does so starting to become pretty ordinary really"

and I just got this response:-

Dax Bennett Hi Stephen. We’ll have more details on a new seating procedure on Monday, keep an eye on our website.

Dax makes it seem like I am looking forward to it n(

It's a cheap act that has no place in a full service airline.

Completely agree. Smacks of an LCC to me, and one of the thıngs that really lowers the perceıved qualıty of the brand. Although I've long thought there should be some dıfferentıatıon made ın thıs area for golds/sılvers, that was more along the lınes of the tıme before departure you could pıck your seat, not chargıng for the prıvılege.

Thıs mıght be just another case of 'what the market wıll bear', but very dısappoınted ın you VS, ıf thıs come to pass.

It's a cheap act that has no place in a full service airline.

Completely agree. Smacks of an LCC to me, and one of the thıngs that really lowers the perceıved qualıty of the brand. Although I've long thought there should be some dıfferentıatıon made ın thıs area for golds/sılvers, that was more along the lınes of the tıme before departure you could pıck your seat, not chargıng for the prıvılege.

Thıs mıght be just another case of 'what the market wıll bear', but very dısappoınted ın you VS, ıf thıs come to pass.

Add this to the 'surcharge' and it amounts to another pax bashing y) No doubt this will get blamed on the APD but VS are not the only one doing this v( v(

I think also that although you can leave it to the last minute to book your seats,how many family's are likely to do that. You can't have Craig K talking about APD on one hand then deliver this to your paying public. v( v(

Start of a slippery slope towards charter airline charging approach

Start of a slippery slope towards charter airline charging approach

Hardly the start, BA have been doing it for years.

I don't have a problem with the principle of charging people who want to choose a seat. Airlines are businesses out to maximise their profits, not charities seeking to create a fairer world for everyone. If some people are willing to pay for an optional extra - which they clearly are - then why shouldn't they charge.

The timing, though, does strike me as cynical. Rather like the energy companies all conveniently raising their prices just in time for winter, VS are announcing this a few days before (presumably) they launch their big sale and before the traditional post-Christmas rush to buy holidays. And they're introducing it just days before the Easter holidays - so it'll have maximum impact on large numbers of customers.

It seems to me an unfortunate signal of the way VS is heading. It's not that VS is even price competitive on many fares - yes they peg with BA but compared to other LH options VS in all cabins can frequently be the most expensive option. So the only way to raise revenue is now to add further cost to the passenger by way of supplemental fees. That's unfortunate - and makes VS even more costly compared to many and that ultimately will not work. VS already loses a ton of corporate business because its fares are high ...

VS seems to have a cost structure out of line with its revenue - to bring it in line usually you have to cut cost or raise prices. Since prices can't be raised, VS heads down the LCC route with extra charges. My preference would be a strategy that differentiates with product and service to lure more passengers overall and therefore more revenue - but that as I say seems not to be the plan and that's why its unfortunate.

I truly hope this is just a rumour, I was a weekly flyer for ten years on the budget airlines and my favourite was Go, with assigned seats, the cattle rush that Ryanscare and Queasyjet got was undignfied and at times hostile.

Then the brainwave of Speedyboarding as a purely profit based move came in then, suddenly, you have the situation where only 50>60 are fighting for the same seats instead of all 140 of the PAX. Yeh like that makes a difference!

Yes it is pure profit £25 x 250 seats each way per flight that they never had before for the exact same service,,,,, as a business man I know it makes sense and they will probably ruin everything for us and do it. But I really really wish they won't.

Don't worry Derek, I don't think there's any question of seats not being assigned. Everyone will still have an assigned seat but presumably VS will follow a similar pattern to BA where, unless you have status or pay in advance, you'll only be able to select a seat when OLCI opens.

[Neil]

I truly hope this is just a rumour, I was a weekly flyer for ten years on the budget airlines and my favourite was Go, with assigned seats, the cattle rush that Ryanscare and Queasyjet got was undignfied and at times hostile.

While it's still officially a rumour, as it hasn't been confirmed by VS, but I'd expect that to happen tomorrow.