Originally Posted by
AAerSTL
Greetings AC FTers:
I am just dropping by here before an upcoming AC 84/85 788 trip to TLV. I figured this would be the most germane thread to address my question (forgive me if it has already been answered):
There seems to be a discrepancy between what the aircanada.com and U.S. based call center (800-247-2262) is telling me on inventory for the Business/Executive cabin versus ExpertFlyer. Is this usual? I am also surprised because there are significantly more unassigned seats in J-cabin for my flight than available inventory. [[Yes, I know seat maps do not indicate flight loads, but I suspect on such a long flight most pax select their seats at time of booking]]. Already booked a P-fare just wanted to get a sense of how full the flight is as I believe Y is oversold, and W is likely sold out.
Otherwise looking forward to flying the AC 788, it looks like a great product and AC has really done a phenomenal job enhancing the product (which IMO wasn't even deficient). Thanks.
ExpertFlyer displays inventory that AC has distributed via a GDS (a lot of EF data comes from Sabre) and would be dependent on the point-of-sale used (EF supports USA and UK points of sale). It will also be dependent on the entire itinerary (i.e. your profile says you are in Boston, so BOS-YYZ-TLV can show very different inventory on the YYZ-TLV segment than if you just searched for YYZ-TLV).
AC reservations would show the inventory they are willing to sell directly. It is certainly possible for them to not distribute all of their inventory via other channels.
Regarding seat selection, bookings made on AC's website will in general auto-assign a seat. However, bookings made via AC reservations will not. Neither will bookings made via a GDS, other third-party websites, codeshares etc.