British Airways Changing Pricing For Euro Traveller Exit Row Seats

For almost a week now there has been considerable amount of consternation over on the Flyertalk British Airways board regarding passengers not being able to book exit rows for Euro Traveller (Economy Class) flights. It hasn’t just been regular flyers who have been finding it impossible to select exit rows for their trips, Gold and Silver cardholders (who should get complimentary access to exit row seating at the time of booking) have been reporting issues.

Interestingly, the British Airways representative on Flyertalk was able to confirm that, whatever passengers were experiencing, it wasn’t a devaluation it elite benefits (that was good news) but, at the same time, didn’t seem to be in a position to say what was going on either.

Well now we know.

British Airways has been informing travel agents of the following:

From 05 February 2016 customers selecting Paid Seating in Euro Traveller will see Exit Row seats priced separately to Standard seats. Customers who selected Paid Seating in an Exit Row prior to 05 February 2016 may continue to sit in their chosen seat, however, a system limitation will prevent them from making a voluntary change to an alternative seat.

Advice for customers seated in a Euro Traveller Exit seat

• Exit seats in Euro Traveller will be priced separately to Standard seats from 05 February 2016
• Customers who purchased Euro Traveller Standard seating before 05 February 2016 and chose to sit in a Euro Traveller Exit seat may continue to do so, however, a system limitation means they will be unable to change to an alternative seat.
• The only option is for them to cancel their paid seating and obtain a refund, they will then be able to purchase seating for an alternative seat.
• A system solution allowing them to change seats and pay any difference will be available in the near future.
• Customers who purchased Exit Seats in Euro Traveller from 05 February 2016 will be able to change to an alternative seat.

I would appear that British Airways has been implementing a few IT system changes to allow it to charge different amounts (presumably more) for exit row seats than it does for other allocated seats on the aircraft.

It would also appear that these IT changes were done just like most other IT changes we see from British Airways – badly. That would explain why Gold and Silver card holders have been having such a tough time booking exit rows and why some passengers have been unable to change to other seats.

The timeline stacks up as well. The information being sent out to travel agents states that the change would take place from 5 February and reports of these issues started appearing on Flyertalk on 6 February.

Bottom Line

This is really pretty poor on the part of British Airways.

Ignoring the fact that, once again, they have managed to mishandle an IT implementation, they gave absolutely no notice that this change was coming. On top of that, they waited 6 days after the implementation date to disseminate any news to the travel industry.

Why? What were they waiting for? Did they think no one would notice?

As far as I can tell British Airways hasn’t said how much Exit Row seats are going to cost from now on and, once again, I’m left wondering why they don’t just come out and say. I’m not abut to book a BA ticket just to find out but I’d quite like to know.

The wording on British Airways’ “choosing your seat” page doesn’t appear to have been changed yet…

…so if anyone finds out would you let me know please?

For the time being this seems to be limited to Euro Traveller cabin bookings only so long haul flights are not affected…yet. Presumably if they plan to change the fee structure for seating on long haul flights they have the common sense to learn from the mistakes made here. Then again, this is BA…I sometimes wonder if their hierarchy is capable of cognitive learning.