Some of my relatives will be flying IAH-BOM on AF metal on June 11 and found no seats for the June 12 CDG-BOM sector on the website. I was worried if the flight was overbooked and so I looked at the seat map when making a revenue booking and it looks like almost 30-40% of the economy cabin was empty. So I called AF and asked for one of the empty seats and was told that they are under airport control.

Curious as if this is normal.