Spent nearly 4 hours today going back and forth between DL (CVG & Chisholm) and KL (NL reservations). Learned a lot about seating on KL flights booked on delta.com (and nwa.com). And btw, also had a very pleasant experience with a DL agent in CVG who spent considerable time trying to help me figure this out.

Because of seat assignment problems with delta's systems KL are not accepting any seat assignments from delta's system (website or phone). If it's KL metal you MUST do seat assignments on klm.com until IT problems are worked out. Any seat maps or seats you think you're getting from delta are nothing but placebos.

Related to this is that until the problems are resolved no seat assignments can be done on klm.com for flights with DL flight numbers.

SO, if you book through delta for flights on klm metal and want to select seats, including economy comfort, you must make sure that the flights are booked with KL flight numbers. Then you can go to klm.com, enter your name and delta conf #, and then select seats for the flights with KL #'s.

Note: According to a KL person I talked to in AMS yesterday, DL are working with them to resolve seating issues. He said that if a seat is selected on DL and the EXACT same seat # and letter are indicated on the reservation on klm.com that the seat was assigned properly and should be OK. He said that EC seats are the exception and must be assigned and purchased on klm.com


If you have a current flight on KL metal w/ a DL nuimber you will need to have DL change the flight to a KL number in both the reservation and the e-tick. BTW, I believe w/ DL the only group who can change the flight # on the e-ticket is the Int'l ReIssue Desk. Once this is done you should be able to select seats on klm.com without encountering the 'Not Possible' message.

Beginning a couple of weeks ago KL agents are being discouraged from doing seat assigns over the phone for flights booked on delta due to concerns that they will be overwhelmed with requests.

NOTE: KLM allows seat selection for inter-continental flights at 90 days and for Intra-EU within either 48hrs, 30hrs, or at gate (which of these 3 times depends on the flight).

DL PM / ST Elite + get a 50% discount on KLM EC seating. GM, FO, ST Elite must pay full additional cost for EC when seats are selected on KLM.com


Other interesting stuff:

KL does not actually use the DL confirmation # anywhere in their system, when you enter it they do a background xlation at the web page to their number. SO, if you call their number in NL you will need either their conf # (not provided on delta.com) or your e-ticket # (not provided on delta.com?) or a KL agent willing to do a manual lookup which they are not supposed to do for flights booked through delta.

Also found out about what was happening in NWA days. As of Oct 2008 all NW flight numbers for TATL flights on KL metal were able to select seats on klm.com. KL were also accepting seat assignments from NW for flights w/ NW flight numbers but not for flights w/ KL flight numbers. The latter could be done on klm.com using the klm conf# provided on nwa.c