Originally Posted by
FloridaFlyers
Which additional people will be competing for those seats? Elites that are flying are already fight for them, and the average flyer will continue to chase the cheapest option available.
Alaska selling middle seats doesn't mean that people are going to magically decide to fly again, and I'd assume that initially, many will choose to fly DL who will continue with the empty middle seat policy.
Alaska will try to fill up a flight. That's what they do. If it means they can drop a scheduled flight to get a higher load factor on another they will do that. Blocked seats means those seats shouldn't be sold. Once they can be sold, they probably will be. There is zero chance that load factors would remain the same when there is suddenly a huge jump in the capacity of an aircraft with seat blocking removed.
It's a fantasy to think that if you saw an empty blocked seat, that it would have been yours and no one else's. Just not how reality works.