Travel Question: Can we book adjacent seats?

Have a question? Ask our expert Simon Calder

Tuesday 16 October 2018 13:06 BST
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Many airlines no longer provide the best possible seating arrangements they could as a customer service, and instead extract more money from passengers
Many airlines no longer provide the best possible seating arrangements they could as a customer service, and instead extract more money from passengers (Getty)

Q We are going to Mauritius next week. We can’t check in until tomorrow but I’ve looked at seats and seen there are none next to each other for me and my wife. Any advice to get seats side by side?

John F

A The trip to Mauritius from Gatwick or Heathrow is a very long haul: scheduled for around 12 hours outbound, half an hour longer inbound. So it would be much better to be sat next to your travelling companion than a complete stranger.

But the nature of Mauritius as a destination, together with trends in aircraft configuration, make it more difficult. Mauritius remains overwhelmingly a couples’ destination: I bet there will be very few solo travellers or people in groups of three or more among the passengers on your plane. So demand for two seats together is much stronger than on the average route.

I am not sure which airline you are flying on, but there is a strong likelihood that it will have 3-3-3 seating in economy. While Air Mauritius’s old Airbus A340 plane were perfect for the island, with a 2-4-2 configuration, its new A350s are fitted 3-3-3. So too are TUI’s Boeing 787 Dreamliners, and many of British Airways’ 777s.

A few years ago, many airlines decided they would end the decades-old tradition of providing the best possible seating arrangements they could as a customer service, and instead extract more money from passengers. As a result of charging for advance seat selection, the airlines have made things much worse on board. While previously there would be some good-natured seat-swapping in the cabin, these days the attitude tends to be “I paid for 33C and I’m jolly well going to keep it” – even though 29C or 34C offer exactly the same comfort.

If all the pairs of seats have gone, the best you can hope for is to be sat across an aisle from one another. While this is far from perfect, it does obviously offer aisle access to both of you. And on a 12-hour flight, you should certainly be moving about the cabin and drinking plenty of water.

Every day our travel correspondent Simon Calder tackles a reader’s question. Just email yours to s@hols.tv or tweet @simoncalder

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