Are your blocked seats being taken??

[moa999]

Flying back last night BNE-SYD on a 737-8.
Whilst a WP, I do not seem to be a high ranking WP, only ever get rows 7 or 8.

HAd OLCI'd before and shifted from 7A to 4B - yes a middle seat but more legroom in the 737-8.

QuickCheck didn't find my ticket and couldn't print it, so off to the Biz Lounge desk.

After some vigorous tapping and a comment, oh they gave you the middle seat was handed 5C, with a comment that 5 Bravo was blocked and should remain empty. I 'stupidly' accepted the ticket

On boarding the plane found a 'front row forward' sitting in 5B in a plane with about 8 spare seats.. The distribution of spare seats was surprising.

4  xx_ xx_
5  xx_ xx_
6  x x x x
7  x x xx_
8  x x x x
9  x x x x
10 xx_ xx_

Has anyone else seen this happening with the spare front blocked seats getting snapped up late??

 

[taswegian77]

my experience is that whilst they might say they have blocked them that does not mean they cannot be unblocked. Having said that when they have told me at the lounge the seat was blocked next to me I have never had it happen to me yet that is became unblocked, touch wood but if it did happen then not much I can do about it.

 

[parsonstrish]

When I've asked if seat next to me could be blocked, I've been told yes but also explained that it may be needed depending on fullness or otherwise of plane.

Sometimes, it remains blocked and others time not. Some of the times, there has been empty seats.

 

[taswegian77]

i was once on a flight and got told the middle seat would be blocked ( i requested if it was possible) and when I boarded a 70 yr old lady was sitting in the aisle seat. When I told her the middle seat would have no passengers the joy of the lady was price less.

 

[ozbeachbabe]

Quite often for trim purpose load control with block forward seats but as flight progresses and freight and baggage is loaded they will unblock some of these seats for weight and balance purposes.

I don't think it's necessarily checkin people unblocking seats deliberately.

What also happens is sometimes you're in 5C someone else in 5A who runs into someone they know on the same flight and they ask "is there anyone sitting it 5B as we want to sit together" then bingo seat unblocked.

Sometimes when it appears like you're helping one one pax, unbeknown to you it's to the detriment of another. :-| :-|

 

[JohnK]

I don't remember if I was ever told that they would block the seat next to me and actually found the seat blocked. I don't believe the block would carry any weight anyway if someone wanted another seat. Most of the time it is pot luck. When allocating middle seats at the last minute do they really look up who is siiting next to the blocked and think "Oh, I cannot allocate that seat"?

I have had a mixture of results in seating and I remember a few months back returning to BNE from SYD on Sunday evening there was 2 Platinums in row 8 with a middle seat vacant. As far as I am aware we were the only in the vicinity that were greeted by name during the meal service. For some reason the second cart in WHY started at row 8 on the 737 that evening.

 

[Groundfeeder]

On my TSV - BNE flight on Thursday I OLCI'd from 10F to 6F on a 734 - no curtian partition separating J class. All other seats from row 8 forward were showing occupied but after departure it was clear that only window & aisle seats were occupied, so a comfortable trip (with extra elbow/legroom) ensued.

 

[ozbeachbabe]

JohnK

I don't remember if I was ever told that they would block the seat next to me and actually found the seat blocked. I don't believe the block would carry any weight anyway if someone wanted another seat. Most of the time it is pot luck. When allocating middle seats at the last minute do they really look up who is siiting next to the blocked and think "Oh, I cannot allocate that seat"?

If you have a seat next to you that's vacant it may not have necessarily been blocked but just remained unallocated if the flight still had spare seats.

If a seat is blocked for some reason eg for an oxy bottle for a medical patient or IFE was U/S generally there would be a comment in the flight regarding same so those seats wouldn't be unblocked by checkin.

Re allocating middle seats at the last minute as the "they" is Altea not a person, it would randomly allocate a middle seat according to the 'value' of that pax which would more than likely not be a forward seat.

If checking in with a real person (as opposed to kiosks and the like) the checkin agent doesn't need to look at the seat map allocate it then check pax in, they just bring up pax name enter bag details eg 1pc at 15kg then enter so the system chooses the seat and generates boarding pass.

 

[comint]

If checking in with a real person (as opposed to kiosks and the like) the checkin agent doesn't need to look at the seat map allocate it then check pax in, they just bring up pax name enter bag details eg 1pc at 15kg then enter so the system chooses the seat and generates boarding pass.

Is the check-in rep actually able to see a flight's real seat map before they enter a passenger name?

And once a name is entered into the system, does the check-in rep see all available seats or merely seats the system is prepared to make available given the passengers score/rank?

 

[straitman]

Is the check-in rep actually able to see a flight's seat map before they enter a passenger name?

And once a name is entered into the system, does the check-in rep see all available seats or merely seats the system is prepared to make available given the passengers score/rank?

I don't know but would be willing to bet that the agent could see all seats as they still have the ability to move you after you have a boarding pass.

 

[comint]

I don't know but would be willing to bet that the agent could see all seats as they still have the ability to move you after you have a boarding pass.

Yes, but during the time between checking in and deciding to ask for a new seat allocation, many other passengers would have also checked-in or changed flights. So let's say you were ranked 25 out of 150 for the flight originally, at check-in you may have been ranked 21 out of 125 (i.e. seq 25), and when you go to see if better allocation is available from the lounge staff, enough time has passed that you could be ranked 5 out of 25 (i.e. 24 still to check-in + 1 you).

So, while the lounge staff can often move you to a better seat allocation, as departure time approaches, is this not due to your increasing rank/score? (As well as - formerly higher ranking passengers being allocated seats in different locations or on other flights.) So in this example - by the time you do your final seat change, only 4 actually available seats, reserved for the 4 higher ranking passengers, would remain "invisible" to the lounge staff?

 

[JohnK]

If checking in with a real person (as opposed to kiosks and the like) the checkin agent doesn't need to look at the seat map allocate it then check pax in, they just bring up pax name enter bag details eg 1pc at 15kg then enter so the system chooses the seat and generates boarding pass.

I agree with what you are saying about people being allocated a theoretical seat based on the passengers value to the airline. I was discussing blocked seats and whether the block would hold using various scenarios.

So let's just say that someone is theoretically allocated 24E and turns up to check-in before the flight and receives the boarding pass. The person upon seeing the boarding pass asks if there are any window or aisle seats available and if none available then asks for more forward middle seat. The check-in agent looks at seat map and seeing that 4B is available allocates this person 4B. The person in 4A or 4C may have been promised the seat next to them is blocked but I do not think that block carries any weight.

Let's take the other case where the flight is closed for check-in and is about to board. I notice on some flights passengers waiting at the service desk who are booked on other flights wanting to get on an earlier flight. If only middle seats are available on the flight they will more than likely ask for a forward middle seat as far forward as possible. I do not think the agent is going to look at the status of the seat or the passengers in the aisle and window before allocating the seat to the person.

 

[ozbeachbabe]

comint

Is the check-in rep actually able to see a flight's real seat map before they enter a passenger name?

And once a name is entered into the system, does the check-in rep see all available seats or merely seats the system is prepared to make available given the passengers score/rank? ]Is the check-in rep actually able to see a flight's real seat map before they enter a passenger name?

There are two areas to view seat map:

1. In 'flight' application
2. in 'customer' application

If checkin person was to look at seat map in 'flight' they would see the whole seat map ie unallocated, occupied, blocked, reserved (eg for FFPLs theoretical seating) irrespective of anyones tier status or value. They should not allocate from here as they wouldn't know what seat they should be giving pax eg it would be possible to give a FFBR 4F on a 738 because you are in fact overriding the theoretical seating engine. The downside of that is that a FFPL the system had earmarked correctly for 4F may end up with 5E if checking in towards the end of the flight as someones manual intervention has put a spanner in the works.

In 'customer' application (where pax name is retrieved) displaying a seat map will only show what that pax is entitled to have so a FFBR on an O class red-e-deal fare or ff redemption may only show rows 20 and aft of that. The avail seats to this customer would appear in dark grey where as eg 4DEF may not yet have people checked in there however those seats will show R meaning reserved for theoretical seating ie don't go there. Just like in 'flight', it is possible to override this if the person has a signon that will allow him/her to do so eg QF Club/City Flyer Desk/Supervisors/Gate agents but that have to enter a reason why they did it. As above this is overriding the theoretical seating so it's kind of defeating the purpose of having it in the beginning. People on bag drop counters may not have this override ability.

Also sequence numbers as on boarding pass isn't your rank it is who checked in first eg seq 001 may be someone who did OLCI right on -24 or maybe a through check from LAX.

You may only be able to get a middle seat on checkin but if you asked closer to departure you may find that people have done ODU's in the Club or moved to other flights so it could be possible to get a window or aisle.

 

[comint]

Thank you for your detailed response.

The downside of that is that a FFPL the system had earmarked correctly for 4F may end up with 5E if checking in towards the end of the flight as someones manual intervention has put a spanner in the works.

If I can ask a question adjunct to this scenario... say 4F ends up moving (to an exit row, ODU, or goes to another flight...etc) What happens to the seat? Does the system re-jig itself and move the next ranking passenger with forward window up to it (and so on like dominoes) or does the seat simply remain empty until someone asks for it? And does ranking/score or FF status (of the asking passenger) play a part in being able to get allocated into (the now vacated) 4F, or is it first come first served?

 

[ozbeachbabe]

JohnK

So let's just say that someone is theoretically allocated 24E and turns up to check-in before the flight and receives the boarding pass. The person upon seeing the boarding pass asks if there are any window or aisle seats available and if none available then asks for more forward middle seat. The check-in agent looks at seat map and seeing that 4B is available allocates this person 4B. The person in 4A or 4C may have been promised the seat next to them is blocked but I do not think that block carries any weight.

If would depend what seats show up when checkin agent looks at seat map (hopefully in 'customer') - they should only be offered a more forward aisle seat if it was showing available according to their status/value.

Re seat 4B being available - 2 issues here if pax in 4A or 4C was told 4B is blocked then it wouldn't be showing available but 'blocked' so I don't imagine the checkin agent would unblock this unless eg pax was a FFPL whose ff no. wasn't in the booking so they were trying to do their best to get them forward. It maybe that a FFPL on a later flight tries for the earlier flight then 4B could be unblocked.

However if seat was not blocked 4B would only show avail to a premium pax - if it was Joe Blow when looking at seat map in 'customer' 4B would show 'R' being theoretically reserved for FFPL's etc and I find it highly improbable that checkin agent would override Joe Blow's suitability and allocate them 4B. They would more likely be told that furthest seat towards the front available to them maybe 9B for example.

Let's take the other case where the flight is closed for check-in and is about to board. I notice on some flights passengers waiting at the service desk who are booked on other flights wanting to get on an earlier flight. If only middle seats are available on the flight they will more than likely ask for a forward middle seat as far forward as possible. I do not think the agent is going to look at the status of the seat or the passengers in the aisle and window before allocating the seat to the person.

I would think that in this scenario the checkin agent is just trying to process pax asap particularly if it's between -30 to -15 prior they wouldn't even be looking at the seap map just moving pax from the other flight and letting the system (Altea) allocate the seat which is much quicker then give pax boarding pass.

It is then the issue of what they system feels is the appropriate seat for that pax. If flight is very full it maybe that system will seat them more forward than usual as that's all that's left. I definitely don't think they would have time to say "I won't allocated 4B because I've got a CLQF in 4A and a FFPL in 4C" because they're under the pump to onload all pax and finalise flight etc.

 

[ozbeachbabe]

comint

If I can ask a question adjunct to this scenario... say 4F ends up moving (to an exit row, ODU, or goes to another flight...etc) What happens to the seat? Does the system re-jig itself and move the next ranking passenger with forward window up to it (and so on like dominoes) or does the seat simply remain empty until someone asks for it? And does ranking/score or FF status (of the asking passenger) play a part in being able to get allocated into (the now vacated) 4F, or is it first come first served?

$64,000 question! Not 100% sure here - there's a lot of variables involved eg how close to flight departure, how full the flight etc. I would think system would rejig itself so if there were still premium pax to checkin they would get that seat. If, however there were only a few stragglers to go they may get a crack at it particularly if the flight was full. If there were still a fair few Y seats towards the back of the bus I think 4F would remain vacant so the last ones to check in with a lower seat/tier status (if any) would still only be offered those aft seats.

If someone was in the QF Club and had 6F I'm sure they'd be able to move forward to 4F because that seat would show as being available to them.

 

[moa999]

Interesting example here on my SYD-BNE tomorrow where I checked OLCI a few times as a WP.

T-20. Check in showing no plane but a 737 seatmap. I am allocated 8A (given my WP status was comped this yr and although I am on 2000+ SCs predominately from a DONE4 I am probably a lower revenue score than other WPs).
Row 4-8 A, C and D, F seats taken, middle seats not allocated. Can allocate almost the entire back of plane.
Switch to 4B and get Seq 003, preferring Row 4 in 737-8s and 4 or 5 in 737-4s even if it is the middle seat for a short flight.

T-15. Check again. Plane variant still not shown. Former 8A now shown as taken, 4B (mine) and 4E also taken, other than that only A, C, D , F now taken to row 9. Few more seats up the back taken.

T-8. Plane is a 737-800 so 4B is good (Score !!!). 4B, 4E, 5B taken, other than that only A, C, D, F remain taken to row 9. Even more seats in the back taken.

---

Conclusions
- There is some mysterious (revenue) rankings of WPs that determines who is allocated up the front.
- WPs can snaffle up 'blocked' middle seats, which I will always do in a 737-8
- moved seats appeat to be opened up / automatically reallocated
- once a lower ranked passenger checks in that is removed as a choice, even for more highly ranked passengers

 

[ozbeachbabe]

Noone can snaffle a seat such as 4B if it's blocked. It can only be allocated to you if someone physically unblocks it so it's able to be allocated to someone.

4B must have been available at the time you shifted out of 8A.

 

[JohnK]

I am sorry but I do not buy any of these hypothetical scenarios. I have seen a person with absolutely no status from a later flight get on my flight and sit next to me in 4E whilst 5E, 6E and 7E remained vacant. Go figure!

I checked in last night and I had 25F on what appeared to be a bulkhead row. Flight was delayed by 30 minutes and we ended up with international configuration 767. No idea who had status on the flight or not but I heard 3 people called to the service desk in the Qantas lounge and I was not one of them. I assumed some sort of op-up if 23ABF or 24AB were now gone.

As it turned out 25E, yes I had a vacant seat next to me, and 28E were unoccupied which to me is random rather Altea working out theretical importance of passengers on a flight. People move all over the place and Altea looks after initial seat allocation and that is just about as far as it gets. If you really believe anything else happens then you need to get out to check-in and experience what is happening in reality because what I see and what you hypothesise are not even remotely related....

 

[dot]

Just to pipe in on the conversation - it was my understanding that QF's new seat allocation system does not allow a check-in or QP agent to block seats unlike the old system. With the old system, I often asked if the plane was full or not and if not, asked for the seat next to be to be blocked out. When they said it was blocked out, I had 100% success with it remaining blocked out - on tens of flights domestic and international.

Since going to the new system, every time I asked, I was told that they could not block out seats any more. I have not bothered to ask recently because I kept getting that response.

Is there some suggestion that that situation has now changed? Are QF again offering to block out adjacent seats?