Now aisle, window seats will cost you more
21 Aug 2007
Flying in the slipstream of international low cost carriers (LCCs), domestic airline SpiceJet has started online booking of seats, charging Rs50 per passenger.
This is a normal move among LCCs to increase cash flow. India's biggest LCC, Air Deccan, has also said it will levy a charge for booking once seat numbers can be allotted by its online reservation systems.
Other no-frill carriers may also follow suit to earn some much-needed money, as almost all Indian LCCs are making losses.
SpiceJet's single configuration Boeing 737 has 189 seats in 32 rows. Window and aisle seats are the most preferred, which means that up to 128 seats can attract this premium booking charge, enabling the airline to earn up to Rs8,850 more from each flight.
Since it operates 86 flights daily between 15 destinations, the gross figure goes up to a healthy Rs7.6 lakh per day. This figure can only get bigger as more planes join the fleet and daily flights increase.
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