people who book early are forced to sit in the rear. on top of that, we'll have to check in earlier than usual if we want to move closer to the front.

1/3 seems like a huge # of seats to airport control, but i confirmed that after seeing a seat map last week. honestly it might be slightly more than 1/3. we booked flights for travel in december and everything forward of mid-wing was unavailable. although it appeared only a handful of seats behind that were occupied, the farthest forward we could book was row 16.