One of the supposed benefits of Select Seating is that middle seats will be kept open unless the flight is so full that they are needed.

When OLCI'ing I of course select a row with a vacant middle seat, only to usually find that there is somebody in that seat anyway when I board the aircraft. This in spite of the fact that far more often than not I can see plenty of empty seats around, sometimes even one, two or more rows that are completely unoccupied.

I've now decided to resort to the tactic of boarding as the very last pax, and then simply picking whatever seat that takes my fancy. This works like a charm on all but really full flights. Yesterday I selected three seats for myself, instead of taking my assigned seat in an otherwise full row.

Why on earth is it so difficult to properly implement Select Seating? On yesterday's flight KL wanted me to sit in a full row, while a non-elite colleague of mine had a row of six seats to himself. Good for him, but are they just really stupid, lazy and incompetent or what?

I just don't get it!!!

Johan