Hi,
I wrote to SWISS to get a seat assignment for an upcoming trip from Montreal to Shanghai. It's an award ticket and I requested either 2A or 2K (they are available on all flights). In the past I never had a problem getting those seats in advance by calling them.
The answer I got by email is the following:
"Seats 2A/K on SWISS aircraft on the longhaul flights are facility seats which the airline needs in case of oxygen, wheelchair passengers, baby baskets etc. Therefore, we are at this stage unable to assign these seats for you. These seats could be requested at the check in desk two hours before departure if they are available.
However, we have requested seats 1D and 2D on the longhaul flights with SWISS. Should the other seats not be occupied, you could still check with the flight attendant on board or at the checkin whether you could change seats."
I don't really appreciate the "lie" in the first paragraph. If she said the seats were reserved for HON pax, I would understand, even if I was able to select those seats in the past. However, the "oxygen, wheelchair passengers" excuse...
And the "two hours before departure if they are available"... Well, when you do the check-in process, you can get any seat you want as long as nobody selected it already,no? I don't recall not being able to select a seat in LX F when checking in online.
I am going to call them tomorrow, maybe that will work better than by contacting them on their website. But I am thinking about writing to the customer service again to tell them I didn't appreciate the lies...
Or if she was not trying to find an excuse for HON reserved seats.. where did she get the information from?