Are your blocked seats being taken??

[Flashback]

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% sucess 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 becuase I kept getting that response.

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

I concur with dot on this one, this is also what I have been told with the new system.

 

[oz_mark]

I concur with dot on this one, this is also what I have been told with the new system.

Ditto.

Also, I have noticed that if you want a middle seat next to you free, you are best off being a couple of seats back from the very front. As JohnK mentioned, the front middle seats seem to get people in them!

 

[moa999]

I think Altea notionally blocks seats, but they remain open for taking (particularly for any passengers of the same level) as well as for staff to reallocate passengers late.

Again this morning only front middle seats free were 6B and 7E

 

[ozbeachbabe]

Dot Flashware & Oz_Mark

It depends on the person you are asking and what their sign-on allows the them to do. If you asking at a bag drop counter more than likely that person physically cannot block a seat as their sign-on doesn't have that capability so if they say they can't that's true.

People who are Supervisors and have those roles and permissions definitely can. I believe this would include those people who work on the City Flyer Desk plus Gate Agents.

Maybe down south at SYD/BNE/MEL they are told not to block seats even though it's possible. I guess you would have to ask someone down there.

JohnK

You sound tad cross :shock:, no wait mad :evil:. 'twas not my intention to inflame the situation merely shed some light on it based on what I have seen albeit not in the big smoke.

Bear in mind that Altea is still in its infancy as it's been around less than one year with QF being the launch customer (ie guinea pig) before it's sold to other customers. There obviously have been and are still some glitches which you seem to unfortunately end up in the middle of.

At the next FFPL shindig why not ask if they can have a programmer or software developer from Altea there to answer some of your questions.

As I've said there's obviously many variables that affect the efficiency of the theoretical seating namely how close to departure someone checks in for a flight or seat changes are done, equipment & config change eg 30/224 to a 25/204 and people flowing forward to flights and sounds like these variables severely impact Altea doing what it's meant to do.

I'm not disputing what's happened to you however, what I said is not some fanciful notion or theory but based on what I have experienced not hypotheses. It does also highlight what happens in the Top End ain't necessarily what happens down south.

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....

Guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on that one. I quite often get to 'experience' checkin and as next reality check is 0400 tomorrow I can hypothesise a bit more over a skinny latte whilst keeping the above in mind.

 

[dot]

Interesting...

If you look at the Altea screen dump below, it does look like it supports blocking seats in some respect at least (see the second shortcut on the left) despite what I have been told at mutiple J and F checkins and lounges:

Edit: Interestingly, this screen dump from the Amedeus web site as actually showing a BA 744 seat plan rather than a QF 744 it should be if it were really the check-in for QF10 as the screen suggests...

 

[JohnK]

JohnK

You sound tad cross :shock:, no wait mad :evil:. 'twas not my intention to inflame the situation merely shed some light on it based on what I have seen albeit not in the big smoke.

I wouldn't say mad but I do get passionate about certain things.

I am sure Altea is a wonderful piece of software but from my point of view it is not working. Perhaps the parameters for Altea have not been fine tuned. I have sent feedback to Qantas on a number of occasions and keep getting told that they are having constant issues with the new system and are getting negative feedback.

By the way I am, officially, jinxed so perhaps my luck is continuing through to seat allocation as well. For a Platinum I find some of the seat allocations I have been getting bizarre to say the least. I loved the time I was allocated 45B :shock: and another time I was allocated 27H or 28H and the mini cabin, rows 23-24 had 4 spare aisle seats or when I was being allocated 30D for 3-4 flights in a row.

Now more importantly how late is my flight going to be on Friday? It will be late it is just a matter of how late.

 

[NM]

... and another time I was allocated 27H or 28H and ...

Ouch ... they are not good seats on a 767 . Have to watch out for those meal trolleys as they squeeze past .