KLM Flying Dutchman - How to know in advance how full a flight is?

I usually book a special meal, but recently have stopped as that I have a small chance of being upgraded as an elite member.

Is there a way to know in advance if the flight is very full - overbooked or not?

You can try ExperFlyer or KVS. You can register at FlightStats.com to get the available seats per booking class or you can try a dummy booking on dl.com where they will show the seatmaps for many KL flights. Good luck!

I usually book a special meal, but recently have stopped as that I have a small chance of being upgraded as an elite member.

Is there a way to know in advance if the flight is very full - overbooked or not?

Not really and not for sure. Flight availability figures give you an idea of expectations by the airline at a given time (the zeroed out indication) but you can have a zeroed out flight which is not effectively overbooked or a flight with 9 in many booking buckets which ends up being. I have been in both cases numerous times, especially in the past few years as revenue management seems worse than usual at translating booking patterns in this period of crisis into effective loads. This being said, bear in mind that even an overbooked flight means limited upgrade probabilities (including for elites) so if you really care about the special meal I'd go for it.

You can try ExperFlyer or KVS. You can register at FlightStats.com to get the available seats per booking class or you can try a dummy booking on dl.com where they will show the seatmaps for many KL flights. Good luck!

At OLCI the seat map looks empty, am I right that according to that I can assume the flight isn't too full.

At OLCI the seat map looks empty, am I right that according to that I can assume the flight isn't too full.

No. Certainly not at T-30.

No.

Even for a international flight where seats can be pre-booked?

Certainly not at T-30.

Do you mean 30 hours in advance?

There are a number of people who just don't check in online or even preselect their seats.
Why keep hoping for upgrades as chances are so small?

Why keep hoping for upgrades as chances are so small?

+1 ^

See the KVS Tool FAQ (http://www.kvstool.com/FAQ.php?Source=HOME) (especially questions 2-4 and 38) for a discussion of how difficult it is to interpret flight availability and seat maps, to work out the actual load factor on a flight.

Bear in mind that just a couple of pax (on a plane carrying 200+ people in Y) can make the difference between there being "space left in economy (ie: one seat)", and "economy is overbooked so someone needs to be op-upped".

Also, consider a long-haul flight leaving a hub - if one inbound plane to that hub, carrying several pax transferring on a short-connection to the long-haul flight is delayed, then those pax will miss the flight, and availability will significantly open up (possibly less than 1 hour before departure). Similarly, if another flight going in the same direction suddenly goes tech, there could be a sudden scramble to rebook pax on the first flight, which could change it from being 'half full' to 'overbooked'.

As orbitmic has said, a zeroed-out flight can often end up not being full, while a flight with many 9s actually is.