Etihad Seat Booking
 

Hello,

So for 2011 I have decided to give myself a treat. I will be flying from Brussels to Tokyo in Etihad Pearl Class - W fare. Price was quite competitive and as I have relatives in Dubai, the stopover has a sense.

I have a question concerning the booking. When I tried to select my seats, only the middle ones were available (all four flights). As Etihad uses a strange staggered seating in their business class I am quite worried to be stuck in a mini-suite with an unknown (well, if it´s a pretty lady it´s ok hehehe).

I cannot believe that no isolated seats are available.

Experts, what is your recommendation concerning this situation? I don´t mind having an aisle seat, but it would be much better to have an isolated one :)) Should I wait for check-in or call them as soon as possible trying to change the seats?

Mbamps,
welcome to the board. I had a couple of seating issues in Pearl class for our flts to KL in a couple of weeks time.I telephoned their UK office (toll free here) and both times I got a very helpful agent who sorted my problem out.
As for the seating layout,I guess most solo pax are like you wanting to avoid the "cosy" middle pairs hence the isolated seats go early. If it were me I would call your local office and see what they can do,they can't cojure up a seat of your choice if they really are all taken but worth a try.
cheers............H

I had the same problem, but with economy class. It seems that Etihad blocks all window seats when you check the online seat map at time of booking. What worked for me is joining etihad guest and selecting window seats as preference. As soon as I booked the flights I was automatically assigned window seats.

Second option is to call them and request the desired seat, i've heard their staff has access to the full seat map.

Third option is to login as soon as online check-in is available, then you are able to pick from all available seats including the ones that appeared blocked before that.

To echo what the other posters have mentioned - they seem to block off a lot of the seats. One way to work around that is to look at the seat map on expertflyer, and then call and request specific seats that you want.