Done both, and they never fail 🙂

Yes, this is true: no guarantee of travelling together.
If you are travelling with a group, there are, 2 ways to travel together. I always used the first one and never had to fly separate from my wife.

1. Try to be amongst the first to enter the plane and choose seats together. Generally, the order of entrance on the plane is the same as the order from the Gate. So, try to arrive at the gate a few minutes before it opens and be amongst the first on that queue. There’s no need to buy “boarding priority”, just try NOT to be amongst the last persons passing through the gate 😉 Then, if you can enter the airplane both from the front and the rear doors, choose the rear door! It is generally less crowded, so you have more chances to choose the seats.

2. If the first method fails, just ask the person sitting next to you if he/she doesn’t mind swapping seats with your partner! If he/she is travelling alone, chances are to accept. Your partner can do this also, so there are big chances to find a solution.

But then when traveling with family or friends it is almsot impossible to guarantee you’ll travel with your party…

Most low cost airlines don’t assign sits. The “free sitting” policy has the big advantage of a faster boarding. It’s not the fastest boarding procedure, but it is much faster then the traditional method. Having a fast boarding is very important for them, because they try to use (fly) the planes as much as possible, so the time the plane is on ground is a time when they don’t earn money out of it!

Even if they don’t assign seats, they know for sure how many persons should be on the plane, how many tickets they sold… so I guess it wouldn’t be so expensive to also assign the seats, if they would feel the need of doing it.

See, I don’t agree. In my experience the most expensive flights are never up to what they should deliver, that’s why my favorite airline is Air Asia.

It’s the same everywhere, as it makes their ticketing process easier and thus cheaper. 🙂

Interesting I am hearing this from a NWA employee. I appreaciate your sincerity.

Air Asia is head and shoulders above Ryanair!

You’re welcome!

Air Baltic is officially a low cost airline, yet I still have to find a price that reflects that. Occasionally they do have a very cheap special going on, but not much more. Have you been lucky with them? Thanks for suggesting, I might include it in the next update nevertheless 🙂

Federico

Hi Arepeace, thanks for the update! I used AirAsia to fly from London to Kuala Lumpur- it was great. I will include these new destinations in the next revision of the low cost airline list 🙂 Air Asia is a fantastic airline!

Federico

Hi AJ

Cebu Pacific is indeed popular. I used it to get from Sabah to Manila and a couple of other times within the islands. Unfortunately while I was there there were no flights to Japan yet but were going to start soon. And Air Asia is my favourite low cost airline…you should be well with them!

Federico

I’m going to Indonesia next month and I’ll be using Air Asia for domestic flights. It’s super cheap too. $12 for round trip Jakarta to Yogyakarta. So not bad at all! Let’s see if it’s any good.