FlyerTalker70

Could this by any chance be related to deflategate? Equipment malfunctions are a reason you'll lose seat assignments, especially for J seats which are more tricky to repair than a Y seat.

It may be due to a SE or other VIP requesting the seat, at which point I'd say there's nothing you can do about it. At the end of the day airlines make the calculations in their had and figure it's not worth satisfying a couple travelling in J when they've got a high roller demanding their favourite throne seat.

Safe Travels,

James

24left

The various examples here indicate the originally assigned seats were filled by other pax. If the seats were deflated, then there should be an X for blocked off. I've boarded AC flights where J seats were taped off, but they did not show as unavailable on AC's seat map or EF.

canadiancow

I can assure you that SEs do not have the power to kick someone out of their seat

Transpacificflyer

I have only had this happen to me 2X in the past 5 years and all because of equipment changes. My experience has been that AC is good at honouring its seat selection. Nothing I could do about it either. For comparison sake, AF/KLM are diabolical with their voiding of seat selections.(I went 2 bumps for 8 flights in one year. ) Welcome to AF/KLM FT members said when I first inquired, in between snorts of laughter at my naivety. We should count our blessings that it is still a rare event with AC.

TemboOne

Unfortunately check-in counter staff and gate agents can be intimidated or even bullied by those with clout.

I can't wait to see something like an elderly couple travelling in J with a ton of checked and loaded luggage going somewhere distant like HKG or ICN refuse to travel when they get on board and discover they've been bumped out of their "reserved" seats (not everyone examines their boarding passes, least of all seniors) and the airline has to either accommodate them or locate and offload them and their baggage - at least a 35 minute departure delay, more so if the baggage tags can't be found! Could be really interesting indeed.

TemboOne

So when there's an equipment change don't you get to keep the same seat number (assuming it exists and is the same class) on the replacement equipment?

That happened to us once at NRT for AC4 to YVR when a 767 was subbed in for the scheduled A330. Everyone whose seat numbers from the A330 kept their seats once the same number was also on the 767. Only those with boarding passes whose seats no longer existed were being paged by gate agents to find alternative seats on the replacement 767.

DrunkCargo

If OP was the only one affected by random seat reassignments I guess that's just bad luck. But I doubt it was a system glitch. If more were impacted with separated seating and the gate had to deal with a bunch of queries, that donsn't help with things like this:

RMKS/AC063 FIN 844 DLYD OFF LATE INBOUND AC004 THAT WAS IMPACTE
D BY LATE AC003/23 ACCOUNT ENROUTE WXX. FURTHER DLYD IN YVR DEP
LANING ILL PSGR.

RangerNS

If they swap the aircraft at the gate, literally the last minute, there may be people in the loop who are smart enough to recognize that it would work.

If the scheduled equipment changes, then AC IT fires up the function.

DrunkCargo

To be fair, I've been on upgauges where the auto seat assignments (for J at least) made logical sense. Like 320 A/C goes to A and D on widebody, and D/F goes to G/K... And the extra rows are left empty.

One could argue maybe everyone should be remapped to A and K leaving the middle empty, but that would break up pairs. I do not think same PNR or not is considered?

canadiancow

My experience doesn't match that at all.

For example, my first time on a 789 was when my YYZ-YUL was upgauged from a 320. I had 1D, and I kept 1D.

I had a really bad experience once on YUL-YYZ when a 333 was downgauged to a 321 and upgauged back to a 333. Everyone lost their seat assignment.

TemboOne

I just can't believe even Canadians can always be so timid and meek as to just accept whatever seat they are "dumped" into.

Surely it's happened before when passengers on ULH TPACs decline to travel when their original seats were "given" to someone with more clout and better at bullying AC staff.

For some travellers they may for health reasons need to be at a window (claustrophobia) or in an aisle seat with clear fast access to the washroom (any prostate cancer radiation survivors will understand this).

In one personal experience many years after taking two kids (6 and 9) to Tobago for ten days on BWIA scheduled flights our return was screwed up. We couldn't check in through to YYZ and as the feeder flight TAB-POS (MD80) was late seat allocations for POS-BGI-YYZ (L1011) were screwed up badly with the two kids sitting together but my wife and I each seated separately "miles" from the kids. This was just realised after boarding and we quietly told the crew that we're not staying on board. Rather than have us disembark they quickly "found" us seats together. Turned out they had a prime block of rows blocked off for BGI boarding passengers in order to facilitate quick boarding there!

If conditions and finances permit there's no need to accept being bullied into submission.
Also do remember that anyone travelling without hand baggage is far more vulnerable.

canolakid

Twice I have been booted from my carefully chosen ULH seat for a VIP (when I was SE and once when I was dirt but on paid J). Both times, just before the 24 hr window for check in opened.

canopus27

I've booked my parents on AC TATL J reward seats before - and I pre-select and then monitor their seat assignments in advance.

On two separate occasions my parents have said they enjoyed the flight ... "but it would have been nicer if we were sitting together". In other words, sometime in the hours before boarding, either one or both of their seats got moved.

No, it's not the end of the world ... but it's frustrating.

DrunkCargo

Does that mean 1C got punted to random? Or maybe there was no 1C occupied in that case?

TBH I have very few samples of gauge changes from which to deduce the algorithm, but I'm pretty confident it's not random(), and I'm also pretty confident it's not promptHuman()... It is a challenging problem to solve though, or at least I wouldn't want to write that code. For an "IT" guy I'm really too lazy to touch that kind of thing. =)

Reminds me of packing optimizations of textbooks decades past...

Edit: Doesn't this lead to problems like Air Canada boots mom, son over seat choice

songsc

I am not sure how AC re-assign seats upon equipment swap/rebooking, but I will provide a few data points:

B763 to A321 (one month before departure), then to B789 (hours before departure), I kept my seat (3A) both times.

B763 got cancelled, automatically rebooked onto a B773, my seat changed from 8A to 10A, but there were open middle seats at the front.

Got rebooked from a B789 to another B789, original seat (something like 6A or 7A) was occupied, got placed at 4K.

And there have been countless times I kept my original seat when they swap a B772 for a B773, or vice versa, mostly on AC15.