In this case, I was fortunately able to secure EC seats, on the aisle, with no one directly next to me, on both YUL-AMS and AMS-JNB while in the lounge at YUL. This also involved asking two different agents at the front desk in the lounge two different times. Since the seat in front of me had A/V equipment taking up part of the floor space under it, I had to put both of my carry ons in the overhead bins on both legs. Since I was able to stretch out my legs under the seat in front of me, I was actually fairly comfortable on both of those flights. I was finally able to secure a bulkhead seat on the AF JNB-CDG flight by continuously checking the seat map on KLM.com.

The agent in the lounge at CDG mentioned something about "two different systems", a new one and an old one. She made it sound like they were in the process of converting everything to the new one. If so, I hope that it means that there will be better integration between the entire partnership including DL.