Is your airline taking you on a ride over seats? Here's what a survey found

Vitasta, a podcaster, on Wednesday accused Air India of changing her mom's business class seat to the economy. She said the airline crew first told her the seat did not recline, then said the seat was for the crew and then she found someone else sitting there. Later, Vitasta said the airline compensated 75% of the fare and gave an upgrade voucher. 

Vitasta is not the only person encountering seating issues with the airline. A survey has now found that 44 per cent of consumers who booked flights in the last 12 months could never get a seat assigned without a fee. 44 per cent of those consumers who booked flights in the last 12 months said the airline was charging extra fee for the allotment of each seat on the plane, according to an online survey by LocalCircle.

Further, 65 per cent of respondents who booked a flight in the last 12 months said they paid an extra fee for reserving a seat once or more. The percentage of consumers who booked flights in the last 12 months and paid to reserve a seat has risen from 47 per cent in 2023 to 65 per cent in 2024, just marginally lower than 66 per cent in 2022. 

According to the survey, 66 per cent of flyers said they found it was impossible to get seats together (when travelling with family/ others) without a seat fee on Indigo, 21 per cent of respondents indicated difficulty with Spicejet; 19 per cent indicated Air India; 16 per cent indicated Vistara; and 10 per cent indicated Akasa.

The survey said the need of the hour is for airlines like Indigo to rationalise their paid seats percentage and make it something that is more acceptable to the consumers, especially not force families to pay such charges for sitting together.

In a tweet on Wednesday, Vitasta said her mom's seat was not given to the crew, it was another passenger and she was relocated to an economy seat with fixed armrests. "Extremely uncomfortable and unacceptable. The boarding pass had a business seat printed, and they hand wrote an economy seat number. Have shared w/ them."

She said the crew on board, particularly one flight attendant Ms Kaur was extremely polite and understanding. "She found a better economy seat during the flight for my mother. The ground staff at IAD offered apologies. The issue remains that a passenger was given my mother’s seat."