Air NZ seat charges

Matthew Backhouse at NZ Herald reports:

Air NZ customers will also be able to book preferred seats, for a cost, allowing them to choose seats with good locations, extra leg room or more personal space.

Ms Hosking said 70 per cent of customers could already select their seats for free, and the new service would allow the rest to pay to select a seat in advance.

The Air NZ website has details.

If you are flying domestically then it costs $5 to select a seat, or $10 to get a superior seat. Not clear what a superior seat is.

International flights to Australia or the Pacific see the preferred seats increase to $20.

Long haul international flights will cost you nothing to select a standard seat, $30 for a preferred seat and $75 for an exit row seat.

From a market point of view, this makes sense. The exit row seats are highly valued, so people will pay more for them.

What I would like is to be able to pay to guarantee no one sits next to me on a long haul flight, so long as the flight is not full.