EtihadHelp,
I am flying from Mumbai tomorrow morning on the 4:35 AM flight (18th August). This morning at 4:30 I checked in online and the seat map showed me the option to select the first row of seats for my second flight from Abu Dhabi to JFK at no extra cost. I selected these seats and went through the process where it again once showed me I had that seat selected. I went back into the app once to reconfirm and my seat had been changed to a window seat a few rows back. I cannot change the seats online or on the mobile app anymore and when I called the Etihad Service Center, they told me they couldn't change it either.
I am pretty sure that by the time I get to check-in, all the aisle seats would have been taken. Had I known that the seats would change, I would have assigned myself an aisle seat that wouldn'y change from the start. Anything you can do to help?