China Southern Airlines has launched an online seat allocation service allowing passengers to choose their favorite seat based on a seating plan provided by China Southern when they purchase an air ticket from China Southern's website.
Before the service was launched, passengers had to request a seat from the gate agent when checking in at the airport and the gate agent needed to decide whether the seat the passenger wanted was available. As a result, passenger's requests for a specific could not always to satisfied.
China Southern says it will send confirmation of seat bookings to passengers via SMS.