Agents Unhappy With Carrier’s New Rules & Fees

New Virgin Atlantic rules eliminating travel agents’ ability to pre-assign seats and imposing new fees on Economy passengers for early seat selection is proving unpopular with some retail travel sellers and tour operators.

Virgin Atlantic announced its new seat assignment rules last month, mapping out a complicated phased-in roll-out that starts Feb. 1. (See sidebar.)

Effective Feb. 1, agents will no longer be able to assign seats for Virgin Atlantic passengers. And starting in April, the carrier will charge fees of at least $40 each way to Economy passengers who wish to select their seats prior to the online check-in period (24 hours before fight time).

At least two other overseas carriers, British Airways and Qantas, also have added fees for advance seat selection.

Positive spin
Not surprisingly, Virgin Atlantic is putting a positive spin on its changes, calling them an “improvement.”

The carrier told agents in December that it was taking the step “to make sure that the seat your passengers choose is the seat they sit in and we wanted to give our Economy customers the opportunity to choose and purchase extra legroom and exit row seats from the seat map online.”

Not all travel agents – or tour operators – see it that way.

Some will book elsewhere
“It’s fine to charge for premium seats; most airlines do that. But charging to pre-select seats is a different story,” said Ted Bradpiece, vice president and co-owner of Two Bears Travel in Shadow Hills, Calif.

“In the short run, people may look at other options. We may have clients forego Virgin for Air New Zealand or some other carrier that does a very nice service out of L.A.”

However, clients who favor Virgin Atlantic likely will choose to pay the premium, he said. “There is lots of brand loyalty out there.”

Cathy Johnson, director of air at Globus Family of Brands, noted that travelers have lots of choice when it comes to London air service. “Passengers are going to think twice about paying for seat assignments in this case,” said Johnson, who characterized Virgin Atlantic’s fee as “pretty steep.”

Seats matter
Johnson noted that “seats are very important to passengers.” The most-common cause of customer complaints received by Globus is “if we can’t assign a seat or if a passenger doesn’t get the seat they want.”

“We don’t like to tell passengers that they’re on their own as far as getting their seats,” she said.

Qantas has a policy similar to Virgin Atlantic’s (as does British Airways), so Globus has experience informing customers that they have to handle their own seat assignments. “They do it but they definitely don’t like it. We hear a lot of complaints,” Johnson said.
 
More work
Jack Richards, president and CEO of Pleasant Holidays, said Virgin Atlantic’s new policy will create confusion among leisure travelers – and more work for travel agents and tour operators

“This will add phone calls as travel agents request advance seat assignments for additional legroom, exit rows, etc.,  or changes to existing seat assignments – plus confusion when we inform them that seats are assigned at flight check-in,” said Richards, whose firm partners with Virgin Atlantic.

Bradpiece was of two minds regarding the operational impact of Virgin Atlantic’s move barring agents from pre-assigning Economy seats.

“Taking away the ability to make seat assignments is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, it frees up our time. But we’re very customer-service oriented: If a client asks us to get the seat, we’ll probably be the ones logging on to the Virgin website.”

Loss of transparency
Like their customers, travel agents have grown accustomed to airlines raising the cost of air travel by imposing more and more fees on travelers. But that doesn’t mean they like it.

Blake Fleetwood, president of Cook Travel Inc. in New York characterized such fees as “an effort to make prices less transparent.”

“If Virgin starts to do this, it’s likely or possible that all the other airlines will jump on the bandwagon. But if United, American Airlines and Delta don’t go along, Virgin might rethink the new fees,” Fleetwood said. (Virgin Atlantic just began a transatlantic joint venture with Delta Air Lines.)

Richards predicted that U.S. carriers will follow suit. “We expect U.S. airlines to implement this advance seat assignment fee in 2014 and eventually charge different fees for aisle, middle, exit rows, far forward and window seats.”

Sees little impact
Because airline fees have become the norm, some agents aren’t concerned by Virgin Atlantic’s new policy.

“Since many of the other airlines are implementing similar policies and the clients have accepted it, this will be a non-issue. Travelers are becoming immune to fees the airlines are slowly tacking on,” said Leo Falkensammer, president and CFO of Prestige Travel & Cruises, Las Vegas.

Falkensammer also noted the popularity of Virgin Atlantic’s nonstop service between Las Vegas and London. “And British Airways, Virgin’s nonstop competition, has been charging seat assignment fees for a while.”

Michele McDonald contributed to this story.