# Airlines 'playing chicken' with passengers



## amtrakwolverine (Sep 19, 2012)

> You know about airline change fees, baggage fees, premium seat fees and food fees. But how about a "you-get-to-sit-with-your-child" fee?


http://redtape.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/18/13921681-airlines-playing-chicken-with-passengers-charging-you-get-to-sit-with-your-kid-fee?lite


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## the_traveler (Sep 19, 2012)

Enough is enough with the "extra fees" - that's why I hardly fly anymore!




What I don't get about the story is that the airline changed the aircraft to a *BIGGER* aircraft, and they still count find 3 seats together?



Say the original aircraft had 120 seats and the new aircraft has 170 seats. Shouldn't the airline first reaccommodate the original passengers before they sell the additional 50 seats?





I could understand it like if Amtrak bad ordered a car or sleeper on today's train, but this flight was well into the future!


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## PRR 60 (Sep 19, 2012)

the_traveler said:


> Enough is enough with the "extra fees" - that's why I hardly fly anymore!
> 
> 
> 
> ...


When a story like this is posted about Amtrak, we all suspect it is a load of crap. Well, I suspect this is a load of crap.


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## Anderson (Sep 19, 2012)

Ok, I'll take a guess at what happened: The seat assignments got switched around and they got slapped with a change fee. It seems like a "classic" corporate autopilot incident gone a bit bad.


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## PRR 60 (Sep 19, 2012)

Anderson said:


> Ok, I'll take a guess at what happened: The seat assignments got switched around and they got slapped with a change fee. It seems like a "classic" corporate autopilot incident gone a bit bad.


What happened was that the original seat assignments got thrown out due to the change of gauge, and the only way to get the family together again (within the system) was to use paid choice seat. This sort of thing happens all time and is usually worked out without involving the new media. I had that happen with my wife and me, and we simply worked it out on board. No big deal. We did not call NBC.


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## Anderson (Sep 19, 2012)

PRR 60 said:


> Anderson said:
> 
> 
> > Ok, I'll take a guess at what happened: The seat assignments got switched around and they got slapped with a change fee. It seems like a "classic" corporate autopilot incident gone a bit bad.
> ...


Like I said, it seems like they just got a bad supervisor...they probably went into a panic at the prospect as well, so we got this.


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## Swadian Hardcore (Sep 20, 2012)

As far as the bigger plane goes, I suspect it was changed from a MD-82/83, 737, or 757 which all have three seats together by the window to a 767 with a 2-3-2 confinguration so all the seating assignments were messed up.

I've always been an AA fan, but if this is real I'm not gonna be happy.


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