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?
SeatGuru and SeatExpert both indicate the aircraft has 282 seats. Numerous sources state that the family was told there was only one seat available.
Assuming the above sites are accurate, some obvious explanations would be that the two unused seats were in different classes of service or there was not a suitable seat for the lap child or one of the seats was out of commission.