It appears that Lufthansa is preparing to let passengers pay a few Euros to select a seat at time of booking for flights operated within Europe and regional flights between Europe, Africa and the Mid-East. The program may be expanded to include long haul routes at a future point.
In it’s current form, this program will be available for bookings made only through a travel agent, with potential expansion to bookings made via Lufthansa.com in the future.
Currently, when passengers book travel that involves non long-haul flights, seats are generally assigned at check in. When the Advanced Seat Reservation (ASR) program is put in place later this year, passengers can pay between €5 and €15 to reserve their seats on short haul and regional flights.
The program will most likely be expanded to include long haul flights as well. Currently, most passengers booking economy tickets on long haul flights can reserve their seats at time of booking without paying an additional fee. In the future, they will need to pay a fee of up to €40 to reserve their seats at booking.
H/T and links to press articles: FlyerTalk’s Lufthansa / Miles & More Forum
