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How likely is British Airways to seat you apart if you don’t pay for seat selection?

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Paying for seat selection when flying has become the norm over the last decade or so. It isn’t even questioned any longer in Economy, although few airlines have gone as far as British Airways to charge for every seat in Business Class.

Are you wasting your money?

Since British Airways introduced Club Suite, we have argued that you are throwing your money away by paying for seat selection in Business. There are no ‘bad’ seats with Club Suite and the high level of privacy means that you can’t communicate easily with those around you. I’d argue that you have more money than sense if you pay £400 return to reserve two adjacent Club Suite seats.

will British Airways seat you apart

Down the back, of course, it’s a different matter.

There are basically two approaches that an airline can take:

  • do its best to allocate adjacent seats to people on the same ticket, as long as a suitable block is available at check in
  • deliberately split up passengers on the same ticket to teach them a lesson and ensure that they pay next time

Which? magazine has just published the results of a survey of over 8,000 of its subscribers. The results are interesting.

Which? asked a question along the lines of ‘Assuming that you didn’t pay for seat selection, were you allocated seats next to your travel companions at check in?’.

In case you are thinking that family trips may skew the results, remember that parents have no legal right to be seated next to their children. The only requirement is that children are seated no more than one seat row away from their parents.

will British Airways seat you apart

Here are the results:

  • British Airways – 94%
  • easyJet – 93%
  • Jet2 – 90%
  • Ryanair – 66%
  • Wizz Air – 61%

The results are intriguing.

It seems that you are wasting your money, even in Economy, if you pay for seat selection on British Airways. There is a 94% chance that you will be seated with your ticketed companions anyway.

More impressively, the same goes for easyJet and Jet2.

To be honest, even the results for Ryanair and Wizz Air are not bad. Is it worth paying the often-crazy seat selection fees knowing that your chance of being together is still two out of three?

There are other reasons for paying for a seat, of course. On long haul you may have a preference for a window block rather than a centre block (or vice versa for a family of four). You may prefer to be near the front, or away from the loos, or on an emergency exit row with added leg room. Excluding these reasons, you might as well keep your money in your pocket.

You can read the full Which? report here.

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British Airways and Avios

Comments (117)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • His Holyness says:
    18 Jun18 June 05:31

    The system BA and other airlines use (Altea) will seat pax together unless it’s configured by carriers not to do so.

    I’m surprised about Ryanair because their proprietary system is designed to split pax up to make them pay to be seated together again. As the survey was “conducted” by Which? I’d imagine most pax didn’t even realise they’d paid for seats, by way of ASR-inc fare or just sheer ignorance.

    I perceive Which? as a publication read/subbed by boomers who still call cabin crew “Air Hostesses” and “Stewards”.

    • Kurt says:
      18 Jun18 June 06:07

      But our Holyness, isn’t that what they are called? In German we call them Stewardess….unless someone uses the derogatory term “Saftschubse” (juice pusher, though my dictionary translates it as trolley dolll).

    • The Savage Squirrel says:
      18 Jun18 June 07:42

      I’d imagine that a huge proportion of people answering the survey were families. If you are just adults then your odds might well drop below 50-50 with the gruesome twosome of the aviation world…
      Despite what the article says, in practice even Ryanair and Wizz are going to sit kids with their adults the vast majority of the time to avoid an entire cabin full of crew dealing with angry demands (knowing the precise rule correctly is for the HfP/Flyertalk reading micro-subset of flyers; most people flying Ryanair/Wizz will believe that you must be sat together with your kids) and then with 100 separate seating-swap negotiations that (disastrously for a LCC) would slow boarding to a standstill.

      • Erico1875 says:
        18 Jun18 June 10:38

        Paid seat selection is compulsory for adults flying with children on Ryanair. Children are free.

        • His Holyness says:
          18 Jun18 June 12:36

          Ryanair’s incentive to separate pax to pay together is not just so they would learn and pay on the next trip but they can immediately pay to be seated together after choosing random seat selection. The option is there on the site or the App, the same way to pay for Priority.

          OLCI is not the end of the story, unlike BA. TAP will let you pay to change at OLCI too, even if the BP is already issued.

    • Flightsy says:
      18 Jun18 June 18:56

      Hahahaha, the third para of your comment is spot on!

  • Cathy Haslam says:
    18 Jun18 June 06:24

    I’m going to have to comment where I never normally would but your use of the word “sat” rather than “seated” was like finger nails down a chalk board for me. It’s completely grammatically incorrect.

    • SMB says:
      18 Jun18 June 08:36

      +1

    • AJA says:
      18 Jun18 June 09:12

      Rob heard you. The article has been amended 😀 It’s something that jars with me as well so you’re not alone.

    • JDB says:
      18 Jun18 June 09:24

      It’s grammatically incorrect, but has become so prevalent on HfP in the face of so many previous comments that I have sort of come to accept that it is now simply done for effect. It does still really grate.

  • John says:
    18 Jun18 June 06:47

    The results for Ryanair can’t be accurate. I have never been assigned a seat next to my partner when booking through them. You purposely get assigned a seat miles apart unless you pay to sit together. They don’t even hide this tactic and actually make a joke out of people complaining about it on their Twitter.

    • lumma says:
      18 Jun18 June 07:18

      Yeah, despite what the article says, the Ryanair and Wizzair scores must be skewed by family bookings bring put together. Their algorithm is basically middle seat, miles apart. It will also usually fill up a row if possible, which means you need to pay to move both passengers to an empty pair rather than just one.

      • Matthew says:
        18 Jun18 June 08:39

        The trick with Ryanair is don’t check in early. Leave it a bit later and you have more chance of being seated together.

    • r* says:
      18 Jun18 June 09:34

      Theres no way the ryanair or wizz percentage is accurate. The planes are always full of ppl swapping seats.

      • Matarredonda says:
        18 Jun18 June 10:04

        Most annoying thing is when you have paid for your seat and some dude who hasn’t wants you to swop to be next to his partner. Always refuse as they are never want to pay me!

        • Lady London says:
          18 Jun18 June 10:56

          Yeah, and they look daggers at you when you politely decline.

          I once watched for days before I could reserve seats on a particularly long longhaul flight, stayed up beyond 1am to reserve my window seat so I could sleep undisturbed. In the middle of the flight I got up, went to and returned from the loo to find that in our row of 3, an older lady had moved a young adult, now sound asleep, *into my seat* “so she could sleep better”.

          I turfed her out, mentioning “I stayed up till 1am to reserve that seat”. I wonder what was that lady thinking? That presented with a fait accompli I’d just move to the middle seat?

          • Gordon says:
            18 Jun18 June 14:19

            Did you tell her that you had not disembarked as the plane was still in the air! That is just blatant cheek, As it was obvious you were sitting in the seat, Us brits are seen as being reserved and many of us do not like confrontation and do not like to make a fuss, So some unscrupulous individuals prey on this and do not have a conscience. I would have done exactly the same as you….

  • SydneySwan says:
    18 Jun18 June 06:53

    Did Which consider the possibility that some people may prefer NOT to be sat next to their travelling companions? Therefore they should avoid BA.

    • TimM says:
      18 Jun18 June 07:00

      Good point. It may actually be worth paying extra not to be seated next to your travelling ‘companions’.

      • BJ says:
        18 Jun18 June 08:02

        …also extends to twin rooms in hotels as I just discovered on my stay in Japan! More to follow in coming days 🙂

      • flyforfun says:
        18 Jun18 June 09:57

        Every time I travel with work companions I pay for the exit row seat just to be sure I won’t be sat next to them. It’s bad enough having to make small talk or work talk at the airport and taxi and hotel, but please give me a little bit of peace on the plane!!!

    • acewoking says:
      18 Jun18 June 12:28

      Or just make 2 separate bookings for the same flight

  • Dom Hooley says:
    18 Jun18 June 07:23

    Not always a waste of money…..your chance of getting a new Club Suite on a BA 777 to the Caribbean is still zero and there seem to be no plans to upgrade Gatwick-based 777s from the old 2-4-2 configuration.
    The Club cabin on flights to/ from St Lucia (and other winter sun hotspots?) from January to March is always completely full. The ‘paired’ seats are all booked out months in advance, either by Gold Club members or with hard cash, leaving single seats dotted around the cabin. If you want to sit with your partner and you don’t pay to book your seat, you’ll be disappointed.

  • Dawn says:
    18 Jun18 June 07:49

    My husband and I prefer not to sit together. He likes the lights on and to read, I like to sleep. We’re flying to Australia with Qatar and Finnair in Business and have chosen seats by the window, one flight we’re on opposite sides of the plane. We’ve chosen the seats we want rather than the middle seats they want to give us. I like looking out of the window when I fly (when I’m not sleeping!)

  • Blair Waldorf Salad says:
    18 Jun18 June 08:00

    Massive health warning over the quality of self-observed survey returns

  • NorthernLass says:
    18 Jun18 June 08:15

    If you go for the 2 cabin bag option (essential, really, if you don’t want to check your luggage and can’t actually manage with a teeny bag) on EZ and FR you get seat selection included. I generally find this option really good value, especially if you book early and get row 1 which has masses of legroom.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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