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| easyJet Airbus A319 |
easyJet, the UK’s largest airline, will introduce allocated seating on all of its flights – typically over 1000 a day - from 27 November 2012.
The airline trialled allocated seating in April with nearly 2 million passengers flying on 12,500 allocated seating flights.
In response to the trial’s success, the airline took the decision to roll out allocated seating across the whole network.
easyJet trialled allocated seating because passenger research showed that the boarding process could be a source of stress for some customers and in some case, a barrier to them flying with easyJet. The key tests of the trial were to improve passenger satisfaction without impacting easyJet’s ability to deliver industry leading punctuality – all of which were achieved on trial flights.
Research among passengers who have travelled on an easyJet allocated seating flight has shown that 71% think allocated seating is better due to the improved boarding experience, while over 60% said that they are more likely to fly with easyJet in the future as a result.
Allocated seating provides a better boarding experience and gives passengers the added choice of selecting a seat for those who want to.
Thanks to a sophisticated algorithm, passengers who do not wish to pay to select their seat will be seated with the other passengers in their booking the majority of the time.
Some interesting facts also emerged from the trial flights:
- On shorter journeys seat 6A was the best seller while on longer flights it was 1A
- On shorter journeys seat 16B was the least popular while it was 19B on longer flights
- Passengers preferred seats on the left hand side of the plane with seats A, B and C out selling D, E and F
All passengers will be allocated a seat for free on easyJet’s flights but will have the choice of selecting a specific seat for a fee when they book flights, or adding them later to guarantee where they’ll be sitting.
There are three bands of pricing, dependent on the seat selected:
£12 for extra leg room
£8 for up front seats (emergency exits, row 2-5 on A319 or 2-6 on A320)
£3 for any other seat
easyJet plus! annual cardholders and Flexi Fare customers will be able to select a seat free of charge as well as continuing to enjoy the benefits of Speedy Boarding’s dedicated check-in desk and Speedy Boarding - allowing them to board the aircraft first.
Passengers purchasing Upfront or Extra Legroom seats will be given access to the Speedy Boarding dedicated check-in desk and will be among the first to board.
How the algorithm works
An algorithm is a process or set of rules to be followed for problem-solving, typically performed by a computer system. All passengers will be allocated a seat with families and other groups travelling together on the same booking reference seated together wherever possible.
Anyone who pays to select their seat is allocated it at the point of purchase.
Anyone who chooses not to pay to select their seat is given their seat number when they check in either online or at the airport
The algorithm takes the data and seats the whole aircraft using a complex formula in less than 1 second
About easyJet:
easyJet flies on more than 600 routes between over 130 airports in 30 countries.
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| easyJet Cabin Crew |
Source: easyJet
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