Willingness to pay for preferred seat selection on UK domestic flights

This study employs a stated preference method to elicit and explore customer willingness to pay for airline ancillary products, specifically seat selection fees. Bivariate correlations are used to investigate linkages between passenger attributes and opinions with stated values for seat selection under a range of scenarios on UK domestic services. The sensitivity of consumers to ticket fares, for both business and non-business travel, is found to be negatively correlated with the stated willingness to pay for their preferred seat. On the other hand, customer perceptions of airline reputation and convenience of flight times is positively correlated to willingness to pay for seat selection on non-business travel. Additionally, the previous purchase of a seat selection product is strongly correlated to future willingness to pay for seat selection on both business and non-business travel. This is deemed to be the result of consumers being better able to value the benefits of their chosen seat from past experience. This research expands on the current literature regarding the growing importance of airline ancillary revenue. The results provide an evidence base for the development of revenue management and the marketing of seat selection fees as an ancillary product.