New Delhi. Passengers traveling by airplane have to pay a heavy price during online check-in. Especially if there are two passengers on one ticket, then they have to pay an extra Rs 300 to 1500 per seat to sit together. Same rules on international flights as on domestic flights: Aviation companies have made these rules on domestic flights as well as international flights.

Most of the airlines have created such a system of online check-in, in which the passengers traveling with family and friends have to pay extra fee even if they do not want to, to get a seat together.

Actually, in online/web check-in, only one person is being given the option to choose the seat as per their choice free of cost. If the other person in the ticket also wants an equal seat then he will have to pay extra. In case of non-payment of extra payment, the airline will allot the seat to the other person.

this is the rule
The provision of the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) is that the airlines will try through their system that if two passengers have booked tickets on the same reference and PNR number, then both the passengers will be given the opportunity to sit on the adjacent seat. Regardless, the other passenger may not be given a window side seat. But with the introduction of online check-in, airlines are giving the option of choosing another seat of the passenger’s choice with additional payment.

Compulsion of passengers to pay for traveling together
According to this new check-in system of airlines, it is mandatory for passengers traveling with family and friends to choose the payment option. When online check-in starts, one has to pay an additional amount of three to five hundred rupees for choosing another seat of one’s choice, but with the passage of time, the option of choosing a seat becomes more expensive. At the last moment this option even reaches above Rs 1500 per seat. In this context, airline companies are earning big money even by giving choice seats.

Airlines are taking advantage due to lack of clear provisions
DGCA issued an air transport circular regarding seat allocation in the year 2024, in which it clarified some provisions regarding separation of services and charges by scheduled airlines. That said, children under 12 will have to sit with a parent at no charge.

Whereas, in other cases, the airlines were instructed that as per the best practice in their system/service, the airlines will try to seat the passengers together, but except in essential cases, the airlines do not seat two passengers together in the rest of the service practice.