<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Joe Airman:
Was looking at an upcoming flight and noticed the following:
BUCKET CLASSES: F1 P0 A0 E0 Y7 B7 M7 H7 V7 Q7 S7 L7 W7 T7
This is a 757-200 (capacity is between 190 and 240 according to Boeing).
Anyways, there are 10 fare classes that each have *at least* 7 seats available. 7 x 10 = 70. Would I be correct to assume that as of right now there are (at least) 70 empty seats on that flight?
More importantly with F showing 1, what do these numbers tell me about FC seat availability?</font>
To answer the first question, no, that would not be a correct assumption. US would prefer to sell all seats in full Y. Therefore, chances are that the entire capacity in economy class can be purchased as a Y fare. A portion of these seats then overlap in the other fare classes. If US' revenue management, for instance, thinks that there is a good chance that they can only sell the fare associated with T, then there could theoretically only be 7 seats left for sale in total (the same 7 seats in all classes). I have seen instances where US opens up all fare classes on the day or two before departure, after most had been zeroed out for quite a while. Probably would mean that they really want to sell a few extra seats, and don't expect anyone paying full Y to come along. Turns out that the flight was oversold, so just because I saw each class showing as a 2 doesn't mean there were 2x10 seats available.
For the second question, it depends whether US will oversell seats on that route. If there is only 1 seat left chances are it is overbooked in F.