Delta leaves the middle seat vacant, Emirates sells it to you to make cash
Traveling in economy, it is known, is not synonymous with comfort. For the cheapest class, airlines tend to [...]
Lufthansa
Emirates
Delta
Star Alliance
SkyTeam
Traveling in economy, you know, is not synonymous with the comfort. For the cheapest class, airlines tend to maximize the spaces at the expense of the comfort. The sardine effect is inevitable, and if it is a long trip, it can be really annoying.
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Here's why carriers that also offer economy seats often tend to offer additional services to cheer the journey, such as seats with XXL space, in the middle of the plane or overhead, which are sold at a higher price Of the normal places.
Emirates has therefore decided to take a new path, which is to give customers in economy class the opportunity to buy the place adjacent to their own, or directly the whole row of seats for those who wish to sprawl out without thinking about nearby passengers, making the journey more easy.
Also useful for the spacing social, to avoid being too close to the travel neighbor in Covid-19 times. Additional seats are only booked once you arrive in airport and it is not possible to do so at the time of purchase, the fare varies depending on the flight and availability, roughly from 55$ to 165$.
Given that fill rates are far from 100%, it is a way to earn a few tens more for a seat that would travel empty anyway.
Lufthansa had already thought about it
German airline Lufthansa had actually already thought of this and had started a trial of a similar service a couple of months ago, on the Frankfurt-São Paulo flight in Brazil.
The service is called "Sleepers Row" and allows passengers who have chosen to travel in Economy to reserve an entire row of seats for Being able to sleep on it! Being a long route, passengers could experience a service dedicated only to premium classes.
Delta extends the half-empty seat throughout April
Not surprisingly, Delta Airlines was awarded the 2020 TPG Spotlight on Safety Award regarding the security on board. In fact, the carrier will extend through April the seat blocking power plants on its aircraft, effectively leaving an empty seat between passengers.
"We want our customers to have complete trust when they travel with Delta, we are convinced that the more space offers more peace of mind. We will continue to evaluate the blocking of center seats in our aircraft in relation to the transmission rate of cases and the rates of vaccination, returning products and services so as to instill trust in the health and safety of everyone on board-this will always be Delta's priority."
Bill Lentsch, chief customer experience officer
Certainly Delta, in doing so, is giving up a large chunk of the gain, effectively decreasing the available seats on board its aircraft by about 30%. According to Lentsch's reasoning, however, this increases the trust of the consumer and thus the company gains in terms of customer loyalty.
Buy extra space, especially on routes long, is always a good idea if you don't want to arrive at your destination with ankylosed bones. There are also other ingenious and imaginative ways to make your Economy trip a little more relaxing, find out what they are!
