You're absolutely right regarding the seating. It's quite possible that eliminating seat charges makes families *worse off* on net to the extent that their unique preference for seating together becomes more difficult to satisfy when people who don't value it very much are now choosing seats early and eliminating large contiguous blocks …
You're absolutely right regarding the seating. It's quite possible that eliminating seat charges makes families *worse off* on net to the extent that their unique preference for seating together becomes more difficult to satisfy when people who don't value it very much are now choosing seats early and eliminating large contiguous blocks in the seat map. What good is it to have free seat selection if there are no longer 4 contiguous seats together for your family? It's not a price transparency issue at all: as you say, it's very obvious and explicit that you have to pay for seats when you buy a basic economy ticket. So don't buy a basic economy ticket - you value seat selection if you're a family.
There are also technical and logistical issues with making this happen. If you require specifically PNRs with at least one passenger under the age of 18 to entail free seat selection, how does this work on the back-end exactly? What happens when you book a PNR with 4 people including an under 18, then split the PNR for the under 18 and refund that one? Easy hack for a bunch of adults to get free seats, and kind of difficult to counteract from an IT standpoint. People need to sit down and think this through more thoroughly, specifically the second and third order consequences. I suspect if this becomes law, airlines may just start bundling seat selection to avoid a lot of IT and logistical hassles. Which then just gives rise to what I said earlier about that potentially making family travel *worse off*. And that's not even touching on the price discrimination effects which are likely regressive on net.
Price transparency issues like resort fees are much more cut and dry. That should be tackled as soon as possible.
You're absolutely right regarding the seating. It's quite possible that eliminating seat charges makes families *worse off* on net to the extent that their unique preference for seating together becomes more difficult to satisfy when people who don't value it very much are now choosing seats early and eliminating large contiguous blocks in the seat map. What good is it to have free seat selection if there are no longer 4 contiguous seats together for your family? It's not a price transparency issue at all: as you say, it's very obvious and explicit that you have to pay for seats when you buy a basic economy ticket. So don't buy a basic economy ticket - you value seat selection if you're a family.
There are also technical and logistical issues with making this happen. If you require specifically PNRs with at least one passenger under the age of 18 to entail free seat selection, how does this work on the back-end exactly? What happens when you book a PNR with 4 people including an under 18, then split the PNR for the under 18 and refund that one? Easy hack for a bunch of adults to get free seats, and kind of difficult to counteract from an IT standpoint. People need to sit down and think this through more thoroughly, specifically the second and third order consequences. I suspect if this becomes law, airlines may just start bundling seat selection to avoid a lot of IT and logistical hassles. Which then just gives rise to what I said earlier about that potentially making family travel *worse off*. And that's not even touching on the price discrimination effects which are likely regressive on net.
Price transparency issues like resort fees are much more cut and dry. That should be tackled as soon as possible.