Aer Lingus introducing new charge on pre-booked seats

sherib said:
Michael O'Leary please do not imitate.
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Disagree totally. Ryanair please do copy. no more requirement for P/B. no more scrums. unfortunately families with children will be penalised.
 
cuchulainn said:
Disagree totally. Ryanair please do copy. no more requirement for P/B. no more scrums. unfortunately families with children will be penalised.
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Slightly off topic but why do Michael O Leary and his low cost airline scream blue murder on behalf of the consumer every time the mention of an increase in airport taxes is made but don't seem to have any problem increasing baggage charges by 20-25% or whatever it was. Besides, considering he keeps the airport taxes for people who don't turn up, I thought he would be delighted with an increase!
 
Are you sure that this was not an April Fool joke!
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Certainly was - "QuickAir’s Abril Tontos" Classic

HOLD TIGHT FOR TAKE-OFF
And as Wales gets flyforbeans, Indonesia gets QuickAir, a no-frills carrier with which you won’t even get a seat. Offering flights from £3 each way to six destinations across the archipelago for the first time, QuickAir will be run as a “commuter service”, with the middle and aisle seats removed to provide standing room. “We offer seats for children, the elderly or the infirm,” said QuickAir’s Abril Tontos, “but standing for a 40-minute flight is perfectly safe — probably safer than taking the ferry.”

Sunday Times last
 
I think it's a bit mean as you were easily able to select your seats and print out boarding passes for free online before the charges came in. More legroom in Emer exit rows but the seats don't recline!

Interesting about what happens if you are not able-bodied and sitting in an emergency exit row - pay your €15 or whatever but you won't be permitted to sit there.
 
Let me tell you about my experience with prebooked seats with AL.

We arrived at Lanzarote airport 2hours & 15 minutes before flight time, and joined (the wrong) queue. It was being operated by a trainee and was held up for 40 minutes whilst she dealt with 2 standby families. When we finally got to checkin there was just one other couple behind us. Our prebooked seats were npt available. Neither was there any adjoining seats available. We took what was on offer.

The couple behind us got seats together although they did not have them booked.

You can only contact AL customer services by fax. No phone. One month later and I have no response to my complaint.

Incidentally the flight was in March and seats were booked in July!
 
You paid a prebooking charge but the seats were not available? Did you get the charge back?
 
ClubMan said:
You paid a prebooking charge but the seats were not available? Did you get the charge back?
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No Clubman. Sorry if I misled you. I did not pay a fee as the booking was made in July last i.e. before the charge came in.

However the booking was made back then to ensure seats together, as my wife is a very nervous flyer.

What really amazes me is the fact that I can only contact them by fax.
 
if the seats were prebooked the clerk doing the boarding passes should not have been able to allocate your seats to anyone else. they should not have been available for him/her to access. so it wasn't entirely his/her fault and whether you were first or last in the queue shouldnt have mattered. obviously if they were available for alloction in lanzarotte then there was a mistake somewhere back along the line.
 
Final seat allocation takes place at check-in, even if you reserved a particular seat, as in the case above. Someone with frequent flyer status might be able to "bump" you from your seat. I guess this will have to change when people have paid to get a particular seat.
 

That is very interesting.

I think the most annoying thing though was the fact that the couple behind us did get seats together.
 
Strange indeed so. They are well known for bumping people in favour of gold circle members, transatlantic flights are where this goes on most.
 
It can also happen where flights are overbooked, so people will lose their "reserved" seat if they checkin last, though that doesn't sound like the case here. It could just be a systems issue where the seating reservations aren't synced with the checkin system, so if you don't checkin early enough your reservation may be lost if the system decides to assign the "unoccupied" seat. They may have to limit the number of pre-booked seats on a fight, to prevent the "bumping" problem.
 
Glad to say that following a letter to Dermot Mannion, a voucher for 450 arrived in the post today
 
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