Originally Posted by
jiaotze
FWIW, I was a bit surprised that despite having no status on Star Alliance, the reservations agent allowed me to select an Exit Row, extra legroom seat.
Row 18 can be selected by anyone.
Rows 11 and 17 are restricted.
Row 16 is also restricted strangely enough!
The reason for this is that whoever programmed the seat maps in SABRE for Ethiopian loaded 16/17 as exit rows rather than 17/18. You even get the EXIT ROW warning on your boarding pass when you have a seat in row 16, although it isn't actually an exit row of course.