Originally Posted by
AerRyan
Big difference between a restaurant and travel. 8 people book a bus, and they can't sit together is more a realistic example. Bending the truth is great isn't it?
If you were the absolute first to "check in" for a bus with allocated seating and a booking of 8, you wouldn't expect to be deliberately separated across the entire bus rows apart with no possibility to sit next to each other.
It's a giant middle finger to PAX when you implement an algorithm to
intentionally inconvenience the customer. If you were the last to board, then you get the luck of the draw.
Originally Posted by
DaveReidUK
If you leave choosing your seat until free check-in opens 4 days before departure, you only have yourself to blame.
Passengers who were going to pay for a seat will already do so prior to this change. The algorithm has been changed to encourage those have been checked in with inconvenient seats to then pay to upgrade; looking to increase revenue.
However, their genius system allocates all middle seats first thereby ensuring this new segment of PAX who would then consider to pay to sit directly next to each other actually
can't (because the middle seats are all gone).
End result is a "punished" customer who was actually willing to pay in the end, which is more than likely to result in a lost customer, as opposed to repeat.
I'd be curious to know the fate of the revenue intern who came up with this idea when it's all set and done.
