YORK-BASED rail operator National Express East Coast is to introduce charges for seat-reservations from Sunday.
A charge of £2.50 will apply to some seat reservations on the main line from through York, from Edinburgh to London.
A company spokesman said: “Seat reservations made on some standard-class ticket types are optional for the customer and could apply to about 25 per cent of people travelling. If a customer does not want to reserve a seat, there is no charge.”
He said some passengers had been reserving multiple seats on different trains, to give themselves more flexibility.
But Gerry Doherty, general secretary of the Transport Salaried Staff Association, said: “This is an outrageous imposition on millions of passengers and amounts to the fourth increase in overall prices in just five months.”
Grand Central said it had no plans for similar charges. A spokesman said: “We will not be following National Express in charging passengers for reservations.”
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