New BA Charges

[ellie]

BA are now going to charge you £20 each (minimum) if you want to choose your seat when you book your ticket. What with the new reduced luggage allowance and now this, it makes you wonder where it will all end. Are they really trying to emulate the likes of Ryanair?

No doubt Virgin will soon follow suit - with only two British carriers flying to Orlando direct (apart from the charter airlines, which are now very little different from the scheduled carriers) I guess they can do whatever they like, and passengers will just have to pay up.

Of course, at the moment you can still book your seat online 24 hours before departure but I guess BA are relying on the fact that people might be scared about where they will be sitting so they will cough up the extra. For a family of 4 its another £80. Not much you might say in the scale of things, but add in the new baggage charges, the possible charge for ESTA and continuing rises in taxes there may come a time when people say 'no more!'

Wonder if BA will remove food and drink from their transatlantic flights - after all the charter airlines have done this - its all good for bringing in revenue!<:wink Or maybe we really will find slot machines in the doors of the toilets before long.........<:lol

[Steve]

This is exactly what we were talking about on the thread about the ESTA charge. This added to the other charges hikes the cost up. However this is a charge you don't have to make if you want to take your chances at check in time, we personally don't we like to reserve seats as soon as possible.

Virgin may follow suit lets hope that they don't though. I believe many charters already charge for this and if Virgin & BA do this there is nothing to really separate them.

[ellie]

Well, Steve, if I was a betting person I would be betting that Virgin follow suit PDQ! :(:(

[Shirls]

Virgin may follow suit lets hope that they don't though. I believe many charters already charge for this and if Virgin & BA do this there is nothing to really separate them.

Virgin have had a £50 charge in place for a long time if you want to book the exit seats.

[Steve]

Virgin have had a £50 charge in place for a long time if you want to book the exit seats.

Yes that is true Shirls, but at least the rest of the plane apart from the section of extra legroom seats can be booked 6 months before you fly free of charge at the moment.

[ellie]

And I have just read that the charge for choosing your seat is £20 EACH way, so for a family of 4 it would make it an extra £160!

No doubt Virgin will jump on the bandwagon, but what they need to realise is that it is these sort of things (more baggage allowance, no extra charges) which set companies like BA and Virgin aapart from the charter companies. With them removing more and more 'standard' items and charging they will soon be no different from the Ryanairs of this world- apart from the fact that Virgin and BA are often considerably more costly than the charters - for example, if you are able to go at short notice at off peak times you could pick up a charter flight for under £200, maybe as little as £150. Now try getting a scheduled flight for those sort of prices.

[Shirls]

Families with young children will still be seated together for free.
Nothing has been removed from BAs seating policy, they have just added the opportunity for those people on lower fares, who previously couldn't choose a seat until 24 hours before hand, to pay a bit extra to have the same choices as those people who pay flexible fares. If you ever look at BA and Virgin websites and do a quote for cheapest seat and flexible seat in economy, you will see a huge difference in fares. Sadly for the airlines, less people are paying these flexible fares, so by offering these 'extras', they can get a little extra revenue.
I suspect there will be more money making 'extras' in the future, but whether Virgin follows this lead, who knows. As you say, Virgin do still offer a proportion of their seats at time of booking to all fares, so it would be a very big change for them.
I really don't believe that most people will notice a difference to their seat choice.

[ellie]

Maybe people are not paying for the 'flexible' fares because they are too darn expensive in the first place!<:lol