Thousands of complaints have been received regarding airlines charging a fee from passengers for a seat. A Parliamentary panel in its report last year has called the move “arbitrary and unjustifiable”.
Most airlines in India are making passengers select their seats by making a payment if they want to be seated together with each seat costing between Rs 200 and Rs 1,500 depending on the location of the seat. Seats that offer more leg room space are priced higher than others. Similarly, a window or an aisle seat costs more. Even in the case of many middle seats, those in the front rows cost more.
A survey by LocalCircles showed 51% of respondents who booked flights in the last 12 months said they were paying extra fee for the seats compared to 35% in 2022. Out of 11,827 respondents, 12% indicated “can’t say” as either someone else made the booking/ don’t remember or booked via counter/ travel agent.
When asked how much time is spent on paying for a seat, 35% of the respondents said they had to pay every single time; 4% paid extra 75% of times; 6% paid 50% of times and 2% paid extra 25% of times. However, 50% of the respondents stated that they “never paid extra for a seat and took whatever was assigned at the airport”.
Also, 48% of fliers want the government to mandate airlines to not charge seat allocation fees for more than 20% of the seats on a flight while 13% indicated that this could go up to 30% of seats; 5% are willing for 40% of seats; 13% of respondents for 50% of seats on airplane; 4% for up to 75% and 2% favour allocation charge for all seats. In addition, 15% of respondents shared no clear stance stating “can’t say”.
The survey received over 34,000 responses from airline fliers located in 308 districts of India. 66% respondents were men while 34% respondents were women. 44% respondents were from tier 1, 32% from tier 2 and 24% respondents were from tier 3, 4 and rural districts.
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