EasyJet has announced it will switch to allocated seating on all flights starting in November.
Passengers will be automatically allocated a seat on EasyJet flights. If they wish to select a specific seat, the fee will be £3. Passengers may pay an extra £8 to reserve a seat in the first six rows of the aircraft or £12 for a seat with extra leg room (i.e. exit row seat)
The new system will go into effect on different dates depending on the departure city. The schedule for the switch-over is as follows:
November 13, 2012: Gatwick South, Luton, Stansted, Southend, Bristol, Glasgow
November 20, 2012: Gatwick North, Milan Malpensa, Rome Fiumicino, Paris Charles de Gaulle
November 27, 2012: Belfast, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Basel, Geneva, Lyon, Nice, Toulouse, Paris Orly, Madrid, Lisbon, Berlin Schönefeld
EasyJet experimented with allocated seating over the summer and found it to improve customer satisfaction and likeliness to fly with EasyJet in the future.
Speaking on the subject, EasyJet CEO Carolyn McCall said: “This is an example of easyJet trying to do all it can to make travel easy and affordable for our passengers. Our customers asked us to trial allocated seating and we are really pleased with the positive passenger feedback during the trial. As importantly, we have shown that we can do so while delivering strong on time performance – the most important driver of passenger satisfaction.
We are confident this move will make our current passengers happier when flying with easyJet and will attract new passengers to fly with us in future.”
