Does anybody know if Air Canada is using the “Theoretical Seating” feature of Amadeus? If it is, Amadeus automatically blocks seats next to status passengers (based on rules set by the airline), and only releases those seats when the flight fills up and the airline need those seats. Another consequence of Theoretical Seating is that every frequent flyer who looks at a seat map will see different availability based on their status level. Higher the status, the more seats that you’d see as available — even paid seats. I know that LH, LO, and BA (at the very least) use Theoretical Seating, but have not seen it mentioned here.

There’s lots of discussion on Theoretical Seating on the BA board — worth searching and reading about it if there’s a chance that AC is using it now too.