Flew from Athens yesterday and they seem to consistently get it right from there:
- Upon showing my gold card to the check-in lady she let me choose any EC seat free of charge. Which is great, as upgrades needed to take place anyway. So they recognise that in this case they best upgrade Golds voluntarily.
- EC was filled AC and DF first. A handful people needed to be upgraded from Eco, and they did so starting from the
back of EC, putting 6 upgrades in a row. (Thus leaving frequent fliers in the first rows at 4 pax per row).
So the seat map was exactly the way you want it to be:
Code:
XbX XeX 1
XbX XeX 2
--- ---
XbX XeX 3
XbX XeX 4
XbX XeX 5
XbX XeX 6
XXX XXX 7
XXX XXX 8
XXX XXX 9
--- ---
XXX XXX 10
XXX XXX 11
XXX XXX 12
She also confirmed that they upgrade people at the check in desk if needed, and only upgrades to business are done at the gate..
I know a lot of things have been said about Greece and its people over the last few years, but I have yet to find any airport in the mediterranean where they are so professional and yet nice
Not just at check in, but also at the lounges and at the gate. Which is by the way all done by the same group of maybe ~8 (?) people in ATH, at least for the AF/KL flights.