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Jetstar will allow domestic passengers to choose seats in advance after canning its unpopular free-for-all experiment in unallocated seating.
The airline said yesterday it was introducing allocated seating from October to bring its domestic operations in line with its trans-Tasman and proposed long-haul international flights.
The change makes Jetstar the first domestic carrier ( in Australia) to allow passengers to reserve a seat months in advance and ends a system disliked by passengers but able to save the airline money.
People travelling on domestic services after October 29 will be able to specify their seat from today, through either the airline's website or its call centre. Those who don't pre-select will be allocated a seat and receive it when they check in.
The Qantas spin-off weathered a storm of criticism when it introduced unallocated seating but stuck with the system because it saved money by reducing the time it took to turn around aircraft between flights.
Jetstar estimates the move to allocated seats will boost turnaround times from 25 minutes to 30 minutes and prompt a minor change in scheduling. But it expects increased check-in times to be offset by new technology, such as kiosks, home check-in and online seat allocation.
Jetstar chief executive Alan Joyce said he was also confident fares would not rise as a result of the move. "It was one of the things you always had to balance," Mr Joyce said. "People would say they would prefer allocated seating but ... if allocated seating meant you had to pay more on airfares they'd rather get their cheap airfares.
Mr Joyce said the allocated seating would also give the airline consistency between its new long-haul operation, Jetstar Asia, and Jetstar domestic, as they become available on a single website.
The international airline is due to launch at year's end and will initially fly two-class services from Sydney and Melbourne to destinations in Vietnam, Japan, Thailand, Hawaii and Bali. It expects to unveil its international fares next month.
The launch has also prompted Jetstar to upgrade its IT systems to allow it to codeshare with airlines other than parent company Qantas.
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