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There's Not Much Of A Selection In Coach Thanks to Those 'Preferred Seats'

Yesterday, we told you about our ordeal trying to get out of a middle seat assignment on a long flight to Paris thanks to Orbitz’s out-of-sync seat maps, but the real culprit is the slew of new coach class “preferred,” “choice,” and “select” seats that are blocked off from assignments until the day before travel.

The airline industry is forecasting losses of about $9 billion by a recent estimate in the New York Times. As a way to squeeze every last penny out of travelers already stretched thin by a la carte (so to speak) meals, fuel surcharges, and additional baggage and airport fees, airlines have started charging for certain coach seats they have labeled as “preferred” to get travelers to think they are somehow worth paying an extra fee to reserve. The question is: are they? The short answer is no.

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