Eating looks ugly! China Southern Airlines International Flight Paid Seat Selection Customer Service | Seats | International Flights

According to the normal check-in time on the App, it was found that less than 10% of the seats were free. Recently, some consumers have reported that China Southern Airlines' online check-in and seat selection for international flights are unsightly. The number of free available seats is very small, accounting for only 6% of all seats. Not only are high-quality seats such as window seats almost fully paid for, but there are also no connecting seats suitable for families of three or four to travel. If families want to have connecting seats for round-trip travel, the seat selection fee alone accounts for 50% of the total ticket price.

Although international flight seat selection fees have already been promoted by the three major airlines, compared to China Southern Airlines, Air China and China Eastern Airlines currently offer more free seats. As the airline with the highest revenue among the three major airlines in the first quarter of 2023, China Southern Airlines has increased revenue through fee based programs, while also leaving its reputation and consumer experience behind.

Only 6% of seats are free

On the morning of June 19th at 10 o'clock, according to the platform's check-in time, Su Hui, who had booked an alarm clock, opened the China Southern Airlines app on time to apply for online check-in for a flight to Osaka in 48 hours.

"There are only 17 blue seats that I can choose from, and the rest are all yellow or gray." According to the seat legend of China Southern Airlines' outbound flights, Su Hui mentioned that blue seats are free economy class seats, yellow seats are paid or mileage exchange seats, and gray seats are non selectable.

According to Air Travel Horizon, Su Hui's flight from Beijing to Osaka on June 21st was operated by Airbus 330-300, a dual aisle large passenger aircraft with 283 seats. According to the seat selection screenshot provided by Su Hui to the reporter, at 10:00 am on the 19th, the number of free seats available for users of "Pearl Card" like Su Hui on this flight was only 17, which is only 6% of all seats.

The same situation also happened to Zhang Li. The economy class flight she purchased from Shanghai to Osaka showed a total of 31 rows, with paid seats starting from row 31 to row 51. After row 52, there were free seats, but only 7 were available. On social media platforms, Wei Ming shared his seat map during check-in on China Southern Airlines Guangzhou Bangkok flight. Economy class seats from rows 31 to 48 are all charged, while those from rows 49 to the back are all gray and cannot be selected.

The highest seat selection fee is nearly 50% of the airfare price

The sister who travels with Su Hui and her family still have a preschool child, but the three consecutive seats available on the flight are all charged. This means that Sister Su Hui either rushed to the airport early on the day of departure to grab three consecutive seats, or paid to choose a seat according to the price offered by China Southern Airlines.

Regarding this, Su Hui calculated for the reporter that the economy class paid seats she took on this flight ranged from 100 to 350 yuan. According to the current paid seat selection price of China Southern Airlines, if you want to choose a seat closer to the front, by the window, or at a safe exit, it will cost 700 yuan for a round trip. However, Su Hui's sister's family of three costs 800 yuan for round-trip transportation, and the seat is not yet the ideal window seat for children.

The reporter asked the customer service of China Southern Airlines about the charging standards for check-in and seat selection. The customer service said they were not clear about the specific standards and could only see the charging prices for optional seats through the work page.

"My round-trip ticket and airport construction fee are only 1550 yuan in total. Choosing a seat requires 50% of my ticket fee. Whether it's high or low, is China Southern Airlines' free rate of less than 10% reasonable? Do you consider the situation of family outings during holidays? Is there any suspicion of harvesting leeks?"

The reason for giving such a judgment is due to Su Hui's observation of the flight seat situation for half a month. As it is the first time in three years that she has left the country and her sister has children at home, Su Hui closely monitors the seating situation on the flight and has also considered paying for seat selection.

"In the past half month, even when free seat selection was the highest, it was less than 20% of all seats." In Su Hui's view, the airline's setting of paid seat selection itself is understandable, and China Southern Airlines' problem mainly comes from the "excessive harvesting of leeks" of the ratio between free and paid seats.

In response to the feedback from the passengers mentioned above, a Beijing Business Daily reporter consulted with the customer service of China Southern Airlines. The customer service admitted that currently, most seats on outbound flights are charged during check-in, and economy class is only available for free in the last 5 to 10 rows. The specific number of seats available on different routes and models varies.

On the social platform, the roast about "China Southern Airlines' App seat selection is too 'pit'" is not limited to whether to charge. Because free seats are too scattered, a family of three can not choose suitable seats, and parents with small children are forced to pay for baby baskets.

According to a screenshot of the China Southern Airlines App provided by Su Hui at 10:00 am on June 19th, on her flight from Beijing to Osaka on the 21st, there were only three pairs of blue seats connected, one free window seat in row 59, and one aisle seat adjacent to that seat. The rest were the middle two of the four consecutive seats in the middle. In the screenshot provided by Zhang Li, there are only seven optional seats left in the middle of the three consecutive seats.

Regarding this, the customer service of China Southern Airlines stated that free seats are all available in rows. If there are few available free seats and the seats are not good, it may be that other passengers have already selected them. If you want to choose a paid seat without spending money, you can only choose it when you go to the counter to change your boarding pass on the day of your flight.

But Beijing Business Daily reporters found that the seats displayed in gray were not reserved, such as the E, F, and G seats in row 51, which could not be selected as of the time of publication, but were also not selected.

Seat selection fees are not an exception

In fact, China Southern Airlines is not the only airline that charges for check-in and seat selection for outbound flights. The Beijing Business Daily reporter also consulted the customer service of Air China and China Eastern Airlines about the issue of check-in seat selection fees. Compared to China Southern Airlines, Air China and China Eastern Airlines have a relatively larger range of free check-in seats.

The customer service of Air China told reporters that taking the CA927 flight from Beijing to Osaka on July 15th as an example, economy class seats are available from rows 31 to 57, with rows 45 to 54 being free seats, and the fee is split equally with the free seats. However, the fees for other routes vary, such as long-distance flights to Europe and America, where only one-third of economy class seats are free.

The customer service of China Eastern Airlines stated that currently, only about 30% of its outbound flights are economy class seats. Generally, economy class seats from rows 31 to 41 will be charged, but nearly 70% of the seats in the back row are available for free. In terms of price division, it will be based on seat comfort, space size, and specific location in the cabin.

China Eastern Airlines customer service reminds that there are also cases where some free seats are locked by the airport. "Considering that there are passengers who checked in at the counter on the same day, if all the available free seats online have been selected, passengers can go to the counter to choose their seats on-site.".

Full service=full charge?

It is worth mentioning that China Southern Airlines' "full service fee" is not just limited to check-in and seat selection. When booking seats, Su Hui also discovered that China Southern Airlines has launched a service called "Early Boarding", which allows you to take the so-called "Elite Club" channel for 50 yuan.

"This channel was originally intended for business class, Pearl Platinum Gold Card, or military personnel, the elderly, weak, sick, and disabled. Ms. Chen, who has tried this service before, said it was" too worthless "because the seat is already locked during check-in, and 50 yuan for early boarding is not enough. It is only limited to the" special treatment "at the boarding gate and boarding time, and cannot enjoy business class security checks at the security checkpoint.".

There are also business class passengers roast on social media such as Xiaohongshu that since China Southern Airlines began to pay to board in advance, "all kinds of people with tickets have started to take the business class channel, and feel particularly bad".

"One of the strategies for airlines to increase revenue is to charge for check-in seat selection and early boarding services," said the head of a large travel agency in Beijing. Charging for check-in seats can increase the airline's cash flow and support its operations.

As one of the three major airlines, China Southern Airlines' differentiated services such as check-in seat selection fees and early boarding have indeed made it the best performing airline. In the first quarter of this year, China Southern Airlines had a revenue of 34.055 billion yuan and a net profit loss of 1.898 billion yuan, which is the highest revenue and lowest loss among the three major airlines. Air China and China Eastern Airlines respectively achieved revenue of 25.068 billion yuan and 22.261 billion yuan, with losses of 2.926 billion yuan and 3.803 billion yuan.

"This also exposes a problem in the current development of China's civil aviation industry. There is a contradiction between the current trend of airline service development and consumers' understanding of the aviation market." The head of the aforementioned travel agency pointed out that more and more airlines are launching differentiated and detailed service content, and many projects provide passengers with more diverse choices. However, correspondingly, passengers also need to invest energy and money.

"Cognitive Contradiction in Aviation Consumption" to be Solved

According to Gu Huimin, a professor at the School of Tourism Science at Beijing Second Foreign Languages University, although the recovery pace of outbound flights has accelerated since the beginning of this year, from the perspective of the overall tourism industry, the recovery of outbound flights has not yet reached half of 2019, and their seats are still scarce tourism resources. Therefore, from a supply and demand perspective, it is understandable that airlines charge for some seats.

Li Hanming, a civil aviation industry insider, also believes that for airlines, the top priority is to increase revenue and reduce losses. Consumer experience and evaluation are issues that airlines will only consider after survival. However, Li Hanming pointed out that from the perspective of passengers, refined and differentiated service management also means that the previous "one handed payment, one handed delivery" style of tourism travel no longer exists. Currently, passengers have to pay various fees in stages throughout the entire travel process, which is not only troublesome for passengers but also incurs extra costs.

"The trend of the future domestic civil aviation industry is to gradually implement seat selection fees." Civil aviation industry insider Lin Zhijie suggests that the prices of upper, middle, and lower berths on trains are different, and hard seats can only be randomly allocated for a long time. However, unlike trains, the civil aviation industry used to offer free seat selection, so now as a value-added service product, airlines need to promote the product, gradually promote it, and try to gain the understanding and acceptance of passengers. This is a process of gradual adjustment between both parties.