I’ve flown BA a few times over the past few years, and, almost universally, the service has been mediocre. BA’s problem is that it thinks it’s a luxury carrier, when it’s in fact a middle-of-the-road airline. Staff are regularly rude and unhelpful and the planes reasonably tidy but ultimately a little weatherbeaten (or, rather, ‘passengerbeaten’).

Today’s news that BA’s going to charge for seating preferences (BBC: British Airways sets seat charges) suggests it’s going to be easyJet before you know it. From October 7, you’ll pay £10 to choose your seats on a short-haul economy flight, £20 for a long-haul flight, and £60 in business class. Want to book those slightly roomier emergency exit row seats? That’ll be £50, please.

Astonishingly, however, what this charge won’t enable you to do is book when you place your order. BA now states you’ll be able to book between 10 and four days before take-off. Therefore, what they’ve done is shift the rush for seat booking from 24 hours prior to departure to 10 days before departure, adding a financial transaction in the middle (which, no doubt, will cause people to lose seating preferences when BA’s system does its regular overload hissy fit).

What I don’t understand is why BA can’t simply enable you to book your seat when you buy your ticket. Surely, with the air travel industry being in trouble, it would make sense to fully book planes as early as possible. If your ‘reward’ on BA for booking a year in advance was the chance of a better seat—even if you had to pay extra—that would make perfect sense. As it is, BA’s current decision has all the hallmarks of the earlier dumb decision to adopt “ethnic liveries”, cunningly massively diluting the brand in the process.