monet grabbers
So the french airline told him the flight was full, so he would have to buy a seat...
If the flight was really full, there would not have been a spare seat. But "hand over some cash, and your girth can spill over into the empty space that we have NOT been able to sell to a fellow passenger by the time we are checking everyone in" would sound like they were just after the cash...
To the people who are 'shocked' about having to pay a little extra for an exit seat: if you don't want to pay big money for a flight you go economy. Generally they pack hundreds of people into this section and give them no space to put their legs out comfortably in front of them, but hey you get to travel thousands of miles for a few hundred pounds, which is cheaper and easier than other ways of travelling so those hundreds of people put up with it.
Now tell the hundreds of people that there's a row of seats in their section with masses of legroom and would they like it? 90% of people would say yes? So basically hundreds of people would like the exit seats each flight and there are only a few seats, so I would be much more shocked if they *didn't* try to charge a premium for it. In fact if they publicised it and auctioned them off every flight, the premium would probably be around the same as the entire economy ticket cost, ie people are willing to pay about double for a "premium economy" seat which is same cattle service but more legroom.
On the same basis they could auction off the seats that weren't next to fat people, snorers, sneezers, kids, smellies, boring people, talkative people, or the seats where you got a nice view out of the window, or the seats where you could stretch a leg out into the aisle and easily go to the toilet without having to wake up the other passengers, or the seats next to hot chicks...
They could but they don't - because they've worked out the total average amount of cash that they need to collect from economy customers over a year, and they know its a number everyone will pay and take their chances, because business class costs a grand or more and we'd rather not pay that if we can help it. But to charge £50 for an exit seat is a pretty easy admin procedure so they might as well do that one.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
