Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Who Prefers Aisle Seats?

As noted by Rich Galen, Northwest Airlines is considering charging for aisle seats:

Bankrupt Northwest this week unveiled a program called Coach Choice in which the carrier will save some preferred coach seating on the aisle or emergency-exit rows until check-in. Passengers can pay $15 per flight to sit in those seats, which may offer more room.

...

Other airlines also have creative upgrade programs, such as... United Airlines, which in 2005 started allowing passengers to pay a fee to upgrade to unsold seats in a better section of the plane at the time of check in.

I have a question for people that prefer aisle seats: what do you like better, the lack of a view, being bumped into by people walking by (and possibly the beverage cart), having other people climb over you to use the restroom, or having to get up to let me get to my seat because you rushed onto the plane before you were supposed to?

One possible cost-saving measure might make some sense:
A next step -- one that may be controversial -- could be that airlines will start charging for bag checking...
As long as they enforce carry-on size restrictions, it makes sense to charge people more for taking up more room. However, there might not be enough space for the increased use of carry-ons that would result from such a policy. Some of those bags would have to be checked for free.

The Washington Post also reports, from the AP.

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2 comments:

Nick said...

Thanks for the comment. Personally, I feel more comfortable settling into a window seat and I keep anything I might want during the flight down at my seat.

Airlines definitely need to enforce the carry-on size restrictions, but I've also heard that some planes don't have enough space for each passenger to carry on the allowed amount. That could cause some problems if they do anything that drives up the number of carry-ons.

mamad said...

I definitely prefer sitting in the aisle seat and get claustrophobia squished in the middle. And I do agree that they should enforce the carry-on rule. Each time I fly I seem many abusers of the rule.