Except they shouldn't be.

The 'blocking' on EF thing is a FLY facet. That's already been spotted in that thread - so it's certainly a 'normal' indicator of FLY.

The challenge here is why those seats are actually showing as unavailable to his wife.

If this is post check in - the view should be the same for everyone. It's clearly CE - so non-HBO ...

I've been suspecting there's some actual blocking going on via FLY ... and I could maybe understand if the next door seats to elites were being blocked ... but there's no benefit in blocking off 5A/C to anyone.