Dear AC Top Tier

Your presence on this board is very valuable and we appreciate having you here. I am hoping you will answer this question as it has been asked many times with no response that I am aware of.

Other airlines offer their higher tier loyalty members of blocking seats next to them on the plane when empty seats are present. Air Canada seats its top tier members in the front of the economy section but then fills up the seats from front to back. So essentially if you are flying on a less then full flight as a top tier you are LESS likely to have an empty seat next to you.

A few examples... I recently flew Swiss in Economy. At the lounge in ZRH, the agent let me know that as a Star Gold they had blocked the seat next to me. I have no status with Swiss besides my Air Canada Super Elite status.

I recently flew YYZ-SAN. Even as a super elite my upgrade did not go through either way (that's not the point). I was travelling with someone else who had bought their own ticket. The flight was fairly packed with only about 5 empty seats or so. As a super elite I got a window but the seat next to me was occupied. My friend, who has NO status with Air Canada, nor even know if he was in a window or aisle had an empty seat next to him. On the way back..believe it or not...exactly same sorry. I actually counted on the return and all the empty seats were in the last 7 rows of the plane...and there were NO empty seats in the first 10 (where all the "loyalty" customers were).

Why can't AC do something as simple as when flying with empty seats to block seats next to Super Elites and/or elites. Seems like some very low hanging fruit in terms of improving customer satisfaction among your most frequent fliers.

I hope we hear a response from you
Thanks