How does one look up the exact number of seats available on a specific flight?

Folks, apologies in advance because I know that this is a basic question. I've done a few searches and ended up with more information that I need without a clear answer to this question:

Is there a way for me to look up the exact number of seats available in the front cabin on a specific Air Canada flight?

In the past, I would just do a dummy booking on AC.com and then look up the seat map showing available flights. However, this past week, I am getting VERY odd results. I'll see seats available and then a few minutes later those seats have vanished. A day later they'll show up again. One time the cabin was showing as sold out on the website; yet when I called in, the agent told me that there were still several seats available ... I'm beginning to think there is something seriously wrong with the website! Is there a non-AC source I can go to? I know that the experts on this board often refer to R=0; J=4 (or something similar) -- where can I find that information? Is this only available on a paid site, or can I get something equivalent from a free source? Many thanks for the help!

Sign up for a free account on flightstats.com and check 'Flight Availability'.

Paid options include KVS Tool and Expert Flyer.

The AC seat map only shows the seats that have been selected, not what's available. Many bookings made through external sources do not select seats. J = # of seats up front. R = # seats up front (from the J bucket) available for upgrade, so R <= J. Expect R=0 right at the 7 day mark for many flights!

flightstats will only show if 9+ seats are available. There is also a difference between available seats (for sale) and available for bums!

You can always call reservations and ask them how open a particular flight is.

Thanks for the advice, appreciate it. So I have a follow-up question. I checked in FlightStats for AC 092 for May 12 and it's showing as:

Business 0, R=0

But ...

Other 9 (at least), J/9 C/9 D/5 Z/0

So does that mean that there are still 9 seats in business? What about C and D -- are those the discounted business seats?

Thanks for the help!

Yes -

9 full fare J seat tickets available for purchase

9 discounted J tickets (c) available for purchase

5 deeper discounted J tickets (D) available for purchase.

Technically, J9 means there are at least 9 seats available in the J booking class. There may be more.

D is a subset of J... so if you take 5 D seats it will drop the number of J's available. The correct answer for flt 92 is there are currently 12 executive class seats left for sale. There is no way to know how many might be reserved, but not yet purchased (unless you work for AC)

Mark Hill found a way.