The civil aviation ministry has decided that a flight cannot have more than 12 such preferential seats in a single-aisle aircraft such as Airbus 320 or Boeing 737. It has also decided that even a middle row seat can be among the 12, something it had objected to earlier.

A senior civil aviation ministry official said that a preferential seat should provide something extra and cannot just be any seat. "In a single-aisle aircraft, six seats in the first row and another six in the row behind the emergency seats can be termed preferential as no other seats provide anything extra," the official said.

The mere fact that passengers ask for window or aisle seats does not mean they are preferential, even if they are willing to pay for it, the official tol Indian express.

So each airline will now have to explain any charge they want to levy and satisfy the ministry, which will issue a notification about this soon, the official added.

Explaining the rationale for the classification of seats by the ministry, an official drew a parallel with the restrictions on pricing tickets. "Allowing the airlines to unbundle services and charge passengers does not mean they can levy a charge on everything. We do not regulate the fares but cannot allow them to make arbitrary changes," said the official.

Airlines, who saw unbundling of services as an opportunity to improve their earnings, feel that such government interference would kill the main aim of allowing airlines to charge for such services.

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