Now advanced seat selection on few Air China international routes

Air China recently announced the launch of its new advanced seat selection services on some of its international routes. The new service will now enable the customers to select their favorite seats much in advance, and requires them to pay a fee ranging from $8.11 to $97.42 (50 to 600 Yuan). Presently, only six routes will be covered under the advanced seat selection service. This includes Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, London, Paris and Frankfurt. The flights on all these routes will be operated from Beijing.

According to Air China, the best seats that the customers can book will be located at the first row on the right side of Economy Class as well as the emergency exits. These seats will be available for advance booking at $97.42 (600 Yuan). The other best seats available for booking will be located second to 10th row of Economy Class, and also the 11th to 20th row of Economy Class. These seats can be booked in advance at a price of $16.23 (100 Yuan) and $8.11 (50 Yuan) respectively.

Earlier, China’s national carrier Air China had in late May 2014 launched advanced seat selection services pilot scheme. The passengers were being charges $16.23 (100 Yuan) for booking seats in the 4th to 10th  row of Economy Class. This scheme was however not received well by the passengers and complaints started pouring in.

The airline however decided to move ahead with its advanced seat selection services scheme despite complaints. A prominent Chinese civil aviation expert remarked that Air China thought it better to ignore the complaints and finally made up its mind to keep pace with the current international trends in civil aviation hoping to earn significant profits. The expert also pointed out that Chinese airlines have in recent years reported decline in sales because of the weakening demand and the country’s slowing economy.

Leading U.S. carriers such as United Airlines and Delta Air Lines also introduced advanced seat selection services way back in the summer of 2011. The fees being charged by Air China for advanced seat selection are however higher than other international airlines such as Singapore Airlines and British Airways among others.