Originally Posted by
MSPeconomist
CNN keeps talking about some people who were lucky to be bumped from the flight. The picture seems to be a Malaysian couple with a very small baby. However, it seems to me that the aircraft had a few (less than ten but still at least several) empty seats when I compare passenger numbers (280 plus 3 lap infants) to the reported numbers of business class and coach seats on the MH 777. Can anyone explain the discrepancy? Are some seats blocked for crew rest on a flight of this length?
That's only two spare seats (C35, Y247). Given that probably the passengers were travelling with checked bags and that there was another flight later in the day operated by MH's close partner KLM, I would hazard a guess that MH were reluctant to waitlist extra passengers for MH17. [Unexpectedly loading/unloading checked bags is a real pain for ground staff.] As for why passengers were actively bumped off the flight, there might have been some juggling with the later flight. Entirely speculative.