The US low-cost airline Jetblue will in future charge its passengers traveling in economy class an additional fee if they want to sit at the front of the plane.

Passengers who have the relevant status should not have to pay an additional charge. Anyone else who wants to sit in the front of the cabin will have to pay at least ten US dollars extra. Long-haul flights can also cost just under $50. Passengers do not receive “better” seats because these are the usual economy class seats. If you pay the additional fee, you are only allowed to sit a little further forward. For many travelers, it is important to be able to sit as close to the front as possible so that they can get off the plane more quickly after arrival. Especially when using walk or bus boarding with both doors, which is particularly common with low-cost airlines, you don't really have an advantage.

In any case, Jetblue makes no secret of the fact that it wants to make more money through the new additional fee for seats that it has classified as “Core Preferred”. You simply charge a special fee for the most popular zones. These are expressly not those rows of seats that had to be previously reserved for a fee, for example seats in the emergency exit rows (“Mint Seats”, “Even More Space Seats”).

This is not an isolated case: many airlines earn a lot of money from seat requests

However, Jetblue is not taking a completely new approach, as competitors such as United Airlines, American Airlines, Delta and some low-cost airlines with which it competes fiercely have long been charging extra fees to economy class passengers who do not have a suitable status card if they want to sit further forward.

Another variant that is also finding its way into Europe: Seats are assigned automatically and if you are not satisfied with that, you sometimes have to dig deep into your wallet during the check-in process to get another seat. Depending on the airline, this thing can sometimes be perfidious when people traveling together are separated in such a way that each individual has to pay extra if they want to sit together. In general, seat reservations in advance are a large source of income and the fact that you ask to check out when checking in online and sometimes at the counter if you are dissatisfied with the automatic allocation is a way to get money in the “second attempt” from travelers who are unwilling to make a reservation .