Originally Posted by
ft101
They must do the first flight ones in one group (alphabetically by what you say) then the one it connects to. In this case DXB-BKK (or HKG) passengers all get their sequence numbers before the BKK-HKG ones. All my high ones seem to be on connecting flights when I've been on the second or higher leg. Other ones are arguably alphabetic (surname beginning with "A").
I actually have long suspected that EK do some type of "shadow check-in" somewhere between 1-100 minutes before OLCI opens (or more likely when OLCI for the first connecting flight opens) where suddenly all pax are given seat assignments. For those who haven't paid and can't select for free they don't get to just choose any seat at T-48, everyone is auto-assigned a seat just before OLCI. I've seen this many times from monitoring seat maps right before and after OLCI opens.
I suspect this shadow check-in is done alphabetically and generates the sequence