Hi fellow aviation enthusiasts,

I was hoping you could all help me with a question I had about my flight yesterday.

I want to preface this by saying this may have been discussed before and I apologize if it is a repeat.

Yesterday I flew MKG - DTW - PHX.

This was my last flight on XJ out of Muskegon because next month XJ pulls out and is replaced by OO with flights to ORD through our tax dollars.

So back to my question.

I checked in on Monday night and noticed that according to the seat map there were 31 seats occupied on the airplane.

I figured this was going to be a pretty full flight out of MKG.

Boy was I wrong, I was actually told by TSA that I was the last one to check in and they were waiting for me, even though 2 more people came in after me.

Now I was surprised when I only counted 8 heads including myself on the flight.

8/34 = 23.5%, which is horrible for any airline.

How can a seat map show a plane nearly full but only have 8 people on board?

Do the airlines block seats?

This isn't the first time this has happened, it seems every time I have checked in, in the past the flights are pretty full going on out the seat map but then only have 8, 9 10 people total.

I've noticed when I've flown into MKG that they flights are generally full, going out seems to be a different story and I guess if you get a full round trip, why fly unprofitable routes.

I've wondered about this route in general and now I understand why they need a subsidy to fly.

It's a shame more people don't use MKG, but that is a whole different topic.

I would appreciate any thoughts, advice, answers to these questions I've posted today.

Thank You.