Originally Posted by themicah
I'm not sure why 9 is the limit. Most airlines seem to limit availability to 9, with AA as the notable exception (their availability numbers top out at 7).
There are a number of reasons: 1. The screen space on a computer terminal 30 years ago was quite limited, so the display had to be compact. 2. A booking with over 9 seats would be considered a group sale, which cannot be booked via normal channels, so the standard availability display would not be used anyway.