Hi, it's been a while since I've flown Emirates (and to be honest any of the ME3 too). However, I now have a booking with the new seating preference rules where we have to pay to reserve seats (I miss the old days ). I have 6 tickets on one booking and am keen to understand how the seat reservation system now works, I tried to contact Emirates directly but the agent didn't seem to know the answer and gave very vague responses so hope you guys can help.

I'm not a frequent flyer, but with BA the system is that if you book tickets and don't pay for seat selection, as soon as check-in opens, BA will automatically assign seats for you (and will usually put you together with others on your booking), it does this for all passengers. So if the flight is full, at check-in you won't get a chance to choose a seat for free. However, if you join BA's loyalty scheme and set a seat preference to "aisle seat" or "window seat", you will usually automatically be allocated your preference.

I am wondering if Emirates has the same system or not?
1. Do they automatically allocate seats as soon as check-in opens?
2. Will they normally try to seat everyone together automatically?
3. If I make a Skywards account and choose a seat preference, will the booking try to accommodate this?
4. What if I made a Skywards account for 1 person (i.e. myself) and choose a seat preference, whilst the other 5 tickets are not chosen, will the system split me away from the other 5? Or will it choose my preference and then seat the other 5 next to me?
5. If I choose to buy a seat on one or more legs in my flight, but don't buy it for the other 5 passengers, will I be split from them or will they be seated next to me?

I guess not everyone will know the answers, but keen to hear your experiences and thoughts to get a general idea of how it works.