Passengers on one budget airline might be subjected to even more fees when it comes to their seat selection, but there is one particular way to try and get around it
A budget airline has introduced a new fee for passengers who want to be able to recline their seat on their journey – and some aviation experts are unimpressed with the introduction of the new cost.
When it comes to booking a flight, the original price you see listed is often for the most basic option – and for a lot of airlines, even booking a specific seat to be with your friends or family will mean your wallet takes a hit.
From baggage costs to seat selection, it can seem like almost everything you might need on a flight will end up costing you even more – which can be a serious pain when most people are operating on pretty tight budgets.
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One more budget airline has decided to join the ranks of the businesses determined to eke as much out of their customers as possible, and will now be charging their customers to have a seat that reclines, redesigning their cabins with rows of fixed seats on some of their planes to fit in an extra row.
To avoid the extra cost, you’ll need to book one of the fixed seats in the Economy cabin.
The major Canadian airline, WestJet, will not have the vast majority of its Economy seats fixed upright, with passengers given the opportunity instead to pay more for a seat in the Premium cabin. The 12 seats in Premium will be ergonomically designed, have four options to adjust the headrest, and will recline.
Behind Premium will be 36 ‘Extended Comfort’ seats, part of the Economy option, which don’t recline, but do offer a bit more legroom for passengers.
“The cabin has been thoughtfully designed to offer WestJet’s welcoming service at every budget,” the Executive Vice-President and Chief Experience Officer of WestJet – Samantha Taylor – said in a statement, per news.com.au.
“It reflects our commitment to elevating every aspect of the travel experience and meeting guest demand for a broader range of product offerings,” the exec continued.
However, the experts are not necessarily impressed with the argument that the change is about creating more choice for consumers, or that by fitting in an extra row, prices will actually come down that much for passengers using the airline.
“The imagination of airline marketers never stops to astound me: the depths they will go through kind of gives people an impression that if I pay more, I get more,” John Gradek, an aviation lecturer at McGill University, fumed.
The airline passenger rights expert added: “Right now, it’s like you pay more to get what you had.”
WestJet is by no means the first airline to remove the option of reclining seats – Ryanair did so all the way back in 2004, and many other budget airlines operate similarly.
Even more premium airlines like British Airways, American Airlines, and Delta have reduced the number of reclining seats on offer, with BA removing them entirely on short-haul aircraft.
