Originally Posted by ethernal

Agreed, but I doubt it is that much higher. In my experience BE passengers are usually all given seat assignments at T-24 hours when loads are low (I've seen available seats drop from 100 down to, e.g., 35 between T-26 and T-24 but never seen such a drop T-12 to T-0 which would be implied if seats were assigned at check-in rather than T-24).

Regardless, even if seats are not granted till check-in, at least a portion of BE passengers would check in at T-24 (or around that time). Given that this number is only 3 (per OP), that tells me that the BE population can't be that large.