I Want My Seat

But what I like better than the instant rush about online purchasing is the ability to see my choices from inventory in real-time, or as close to real-time as is humanly possible. I was reminded of this when I went to buy a rug at Pottery Barn this past weekend. The clerk at the store was looking up my choice of color and style in her computer system, which told her that the store had four rugs available in their inventory. But then she went to a paper notebook and saw that they really only had one, and proceeded to cross that off and initial it with the date. What a system! What happened to the "other" three rugs? They were being held for other customers, she said. Or maybe they were sold and no one updated the computer. Some great computerized system they have there. It was probably just converted over from punch-card decks a few years ago.

Luckily, the airlines have done a better job than Pottery Barn of keeping track of their seat inventory, and I for one am a happier flyer. The airlines have tried to entice me as a customer over the years with various reward systems -- points for miles, free upgrades, spending an extra 50 cents on what they call food, and the like. But all of that is just fluff. What I really like is being able to pick a particular seat on the planes that I fly. It isn't too much to ask. Most of the major U.S. carriers offer seat selection as part of their Web ticketing process. How they have implemented it, of course, differs.

I give Delta's Web site top marks. You can view the seat map of the flights you want before parting with your treasured credit-card number, thereby seeing whether any of the "good" seats are left in inventory on that particular flight. Of course, there is no guarantee in the time that it takes you to click through the site that all of these good seats are still available. Continental's site is one of the worst; you have to commit to the flight and buy the ticket before you can choose your seats. American's is somewhere in between.

I thought about this when I went to book my next cross-country business trip. I had plenty of options for my flight, being that I fly out of New York and have my choice of five airports. My choice was taking a connecting flight on a closer airport with American, or driving further and taking a nonstop flight. While I wasn't all that sensitive to price, the thought of giving the airlines any more money than was reasonable (say, more than $400) was certainly a factor.

I ended up going with the American connecting flight, mainly because I could pick the seats I wanted on the flights that were the most convenient. I did this even though I was breaking one of Strom's rules of travel: Never get off a plane in a city that I don't want to spend the night in. (Another rule is always stay in motion when your flights are cancelled, moving closer to your destination. I'll have to compile these for another column.)

So American got my business, because I could pick my seats. I think this is the beginning of a trend, and I hope more airlines improve their Web ticketing process to allow for more up-front seat selection like Delta's.