Originally Posted by
Rich34
Booked a flight yesterday for next weekend, EWR-FLL. When I got to the point where you select your seats, it said the seating will be assigned at the airport. I never saw this message before and decided to call JB and ask if they could seat my wife and I together. The CSR, Kim, happily obliged.
While I had her on the phone, I asked about when they would be posting the seat map prior to booking? She said not anytime soon, as they felt that posting that with the the occupancy of flight would give "intelligence" to other airlines as to the number of people on that flight, prompting them to maybe add more flights at the same time. I asked her if she was referring to Continental at EWR......... Go figure.
This almost always happens when I book a lastminute ticket on a generally full flight (a day or two before on my usually full Monday 6:50AM PIT-JFK flight).
The quick answer is that the online system blocks off the front few rows (I think 1-5) from online selection, and once other booking customers fill the remaining seats they give new folks this message. I suspect that they do it to keep the seats up front available for disabled passengers who ask, and will just give you your seat at the counter when you get to the airport.
About half of the time, if I log in early enough to print my boarding pass by the day before the flight, I can grab an empty seat that was released. Otherwise, I have to go to the airport, get the error message at the kiosk telling me to see the rep at the counter (since I think they even block these front rows off from the kiosks), then wait in line for the checkin counter (keeping reps busier than they need to be and wasting $) to get my seat.
This was a big pain when I was flying BOS-PIT (had to get to the airport 45 minutes before my flight instead of my usual 30), but has been less of one at JFK as I'll generally sneak into the usually empty group checkin line. I hadn't thought of calling the CSRs but will do it next time.