Next seat blocked: The new anciliary service offered by european airlines

For the past 15 years, airlines have been competing to charge passengers as much as possible in addition to the airfare and taxes initially paid: seat selection, extra baggage, Fast Track at airports, pre-ordered menus: the bill can quickly become hefty..

But over the past few weeks, European airlines have started marketing a new paid service: the blocked seat. What is it, and who offers it? Here’s how it works.

Blocking seats is not really new

For almost 40 years, intra-European business class travel has traditionally been a disappointment: the quality and substance of the meal tray have steadily deteriorated, and even if priority services are pleasant at airports, they are also available to loyal passengers.

The real difference, however, is that the seat next to your own is blocked. A real difference when you’re corpulent or need to work on your computer: no more armrest battles and real working comfort.

In fact, for a long time, economy-class travel for loyal passengers also meant, most of the times, an adjoining seat left free.

At Air France, for example, when preparing flights, ground staff avoided assigning adjoining seats to Platinum passengers.

A free adjoining seat… Or even a whole row to yourself?

The practice of blocking adjoining seats was a good opportunity for passengers to monetize this service. All the more so as, over time, European airlines introduced seat selection at the time of booking, making it impossible to block these seats for loyal passengers…

Air France and KLM are leading the way with this new service. During a domestic check-in from Paris to Nice, I was presented with a screen offering this service.

The screen clearly states that the proposed option is not guaranteed, and if a mass sale takes place, the paid option will be refunded.

What’s the price? On this flight, it’s a reasonable price for added comfort.

SAS even offers the option… in Premium!

It was during my recent check-in between Boston and Paris that I discovered that Scandinavian Airlines, SAS, offers this option for its intra-European flights in SAS Plus, the Scandinavian airline’s Premium Economy, which replaces Business.

Yes, you can have a Business class ticket on a transatlantic flight and still have a neighbor on its intra-European connection on SAS!

However, when I checked in for Paris from Boston, I was offered to buy the adjoining seat on the Copenhagen-Paris segment, which I did.

The Scandinavian airline charges €29 for this itinerary, which is a bit steep, but I really didn’t want a neighbor.

Bottom line

Yet another ancillary service, which will certainly tend to develop. Will it catch on? That remains to be seen, especially if this seat is not guaranteed.