They even say there is no guarantee that families (or others travelling together) will be able to sit together - meaning, this will "force" such travelers to pay extra for seats near each other.
Also, this fee is non-refundable. So, if the traveler cancels his flight, he will still lose the price paid for the reserved seats, even if he gets the ticket price refunded.
El Al explains that this is necessary due to the drop in the price of oil in addition to increased competition from low-fare carriers.
source: Globes
My thoughts:
1. instead of people paying to reserve seats near each other, I suspect many people will choose to fly other airlines.
2. how does a drop in oil prices, reducing the costs of the airline, require them to raise prices? They should have more profit because their expenses are lower.
3. I would fly without paying for reserved seats and hope that my kids get seated next to other people. Let them take care of my kids, while I enjoy a nice, quiet, flight. Though I might have to suffer sitting next to someone else's kids.
4. How will this effect the regular activity of people trying to change seats on El Al flights to avoid sitting next to women? If someone paid for a reserved seat and a woman is seated next to him, can he demand a switch? What if the woman is in a reserved seat and a Hassid is seated next to her - can he "force" her to be moved, as what commonly happens, if she paid extra for that specific seat?
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Sadly, other airlines are doing this already. It started with the discount airlines but it will soon have spread to become universal, I'm sure. I recently bought cheap tickets to Amsterdam (from Israel) for a quick getaway with my daughter and told her I wasn't paying extra to sit with her for the hours it would take us to get to our vacation. Fortunately, we did end up together without paying extra. :-)
ReplyDeleteI think the airlines must take a passenger's age into consideration and only seat anyone under the age of, say, 12, with an accompanying adult if there is one on the same reservation. This seems like common sense to me...
There's going to be a new going into effect in 2017 which makes it illegal for airlines to charge extra for parents to sit with their children.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.babble.com/parenting/congress-passes-law-guaranteeing-families-to-sit-together-on-flights/
I'm not sure if this will impact El Al, though, which operates out of Israel, not America.
However I wonder how this'll affect the Ultra-Orthodox who buy seats in advance, and end up sitting next to a person of the opposite gender who's also paid for their specific seat. Conversely, it may make it easier for a flight attendant to insist someone move if they didn't pay in advance for their specific seat.