Lufthansa Gets Punitive With Economy Light Seat Assignments

A person who purchased basic economy gave up the ability to choose seats for a lower price. I don’t think a charge to choose seats is out of line in light of that price reduction.

EUR 25/CHF 35/USD 35

Aside: I hate it when airlines charge people from different countries differently for the same item. 25€ ≠ $35. Condor does similar nonsense, 69€ ≠ $99. I once went to the German site condor.de to pay the German euros price for a seat reservation, it said I had to pay on condor.com and the higher $99
price for US citizens.

A person who purchased basic economy gave up the ability to choose
seats for a lower price.

a1 One way to look at it, another would be the airline provided a way for people on tight a budget to travel.

As a budget traveler, thank you James. Looks like Lufthansa is on my list of airlines not to fly.

I expect most of them will follow this lead.

The point was for these passengers to get the "worst" seats allowing them to give the better seats to those that pay more. WIth the current staffing/scheduling challenges airlines face allowing basic economy fliers to block better seats at 24 hours impacts passengers who didn't go that route, but got rebooked due to no fault of the passenger. This will allow them to hold aisle/window for those customers.

Gail, isn't capitalism great; if you don't like what "A" is selling, you buy from "B".
If enough people do it, "A" starts acting more like "B".
Personally, my minimum requirements are good connection times (long enough to be practical), and a pre-purchased aisle seat (my perception is the ones without seat assignments are the first to get bumped, them and Code Shares), then everything else being equal I go for the cheapest; past experience of good service breaks ties.
The marketing games have zero impact.

This is similar to the "resort fees" game that hotels play, it's all about creating rates and airfares that will pop up first in search results. Those who don't look any further than the good number, well they kind of get what's coming. My experience with Google Flights is that yes they'll show the sweet lowball fare but then as you drill down they explain what it does (and doesn't) come with, and then show higher priced options. Which usually end up making more sense, but again - it's all about the search results.