AF economy seat reservation - Premium only seats
 

Hello to all at Flyer Talk! :)

This is my first post here, so I'm really sorry if I did anything wrong or posted this in the wrong place. My question is regarding my longhaul AF flight on the 25th of June (CDG-GRU). I've noticed several seats are reserved for premium frequent flyer passengers only, and according to the AF call center these seats are only freed up 30 hours prior to departure.

My question is whether there is ANY way I can get these seats? Also, I would like to know from someone who has experience reserving seats on AF how many of these seats are actually available 30 hours prior to departure?

Thanks for your help and best reggards!

Welcome to Flyertalk MatFlyer :)
You have posted in the right forum, the best of FT of course ;)
What you said is right : the front Y cabin (in whole or in part) can be pre-assigned only for Elites/Elites+ pax, and they are available to anyone when OLCI opens, i.e 30 hrs before departure. I don't think there is any way for you to have them before.
And to tell you usually how much of those seats are indeed available at OLCI, I'm afraid it's absolutely impossible to give you an answer, as this can vary considerably across flights, days, seasons, etc. The period of your flight should be during or close to the soccer World Cup, right ? If the case, expect some very very full flights. So, at that stage, my advice is that you must secure a good seat where you can pre-select one (otherwise you'll get stuck in a middle seat), and see at OLCI what you can do as soon as they open it.

I'm not sure I understand the question. If you mean any way to get these seats as advanced booking, then the answer is no. They are kept for elite flyers for a reason. If you mean whether there is a chance that some of those seats will be available at OLCI time, then yes, some will be. Depending on how busy the flight is and how 'elite heavy' it is the 'good' seats (eg windows, etc or upper deck on the A380) will likely all be taken, but some of the less desirable ones kept for elites might be available. Note that some seats such as exit rows would only be available to you for a fee even if they are free at OLCI.

Thanks for the help guys! I guess the only way I'll get those seats is by checking in exactly 30 hours prior to departure :rolleyes:. My only hope is that the world cup and the hordes of tourists it will bring scares away all the elites :). Air France really does exaggerate the amount of seats it reserves for frequent flyers though...

Not really - those numbers are based on the typical proportion of eligible passengers, which includes elite passengers (not only AF but Skyteam ones) as well as full fare paying passengers. As mentioned, on some flights/routes where there is a less than average proportion of elite pax, some of those seats will remain free, while on others where, on the contrary, there are more elite pax booked compared to the norm, what is kept is not nearly enough and some top elite customers may not be able to get a preferred seat at all. If you want to compare, if you were flying BA, SK, etc, as a non-elite passenger on a non-full fare ticket, you would not be able to pre-assign any seat at all unless you paid!

More to the point, is there any particular reason why you would like one of those seats? Are there no regular seats corresponding to what you would like (window, aisle, etc?) or is it just that you would like to sit closer to the front or in a particular row?

That's easy for an AF/KL life plat to say :D

I'm flying in a group of four people, and the only seats available are separate from each other and/or in very awkward places (eg: The middle of the middle row).

I didn't mean it as a normative statement, just as an empirical one, as in sometimes they block many more seats that will actually be taken by Gold/Plat/Full fare, and other times, by the time I reserve, there may be no elite seat available at all. Whether it is right or wrong, one is to presume that AF wants to reserve enough premium seats to accommodate the needs of its elite passengers, and in that sense, on average, it does not overshoot.

To be honest, I think that your problem is not related to the seats reserved for elite pax but to two important facts: (1) not all seats are available for pre-assignments on AF. Many are not so all you see as not available for pre-assignment is not necessarily assigned but nearly half the cabin is kept for OLCI choice only to ensure that as few people as possible will be able to be sat together, (2) flights to/from Brazil are obviously extremely busy in that period.

I'm assuming that you are on AF 456. There are only 6 rows left of elite assignments so the odds that you would get, say, two window/middle behind each other by the time check in opens are not huge in my view. At the same time, most likely you will see several other pairs of seats opening at OLCI in the non-elite area too. If I were you, I would either preassign a block of 4 or 2 pairs of 2 seats together for the moment and hope that something better opens up. There is a fairly good chance that it will but you are better safe than sorry.

I know, I was just kidding ;). Actually the information you provided about how several AF flights are really 'elite heavy' was really helpful and informative.

Yes, indeed I am. I actually just noticed I made a big mistake in my first post :rolleyes:. I said my flight was on the 25th of June when it actually is on the 15th of July. The 25th of June is my outbound to Europe via Amsterdam on KL792. I then return to Brazil on the 15th of July, aboard AF456. That makes it so that, in a way, I am against World Cup traffic because as I am leaving Brazil, people are coming in to watch the cup and when I am leaving Europe it'll be about the time in which people will be coming back. Anyway, I have reserved seats that are reasonably close to each other and are reasonably good, considering the circumstances. I'll try to check in exactly 30 hours prior to departure and get better seats, although considering it is a morning flight that will be quite late at night ;), but even if I don't get them I have reasonably good seats, after all better safe that sorry :).

Yep, you should be post-world cup rush then, although you might be with all the Brazilians who have decided to escape the country fearing it could be a rather messy period! ;) More to the point, you then also get the full summer holiday rush so I think it was wise of you to secure some decent seats already!! It probably won't make it any better, but for what it's worth, there are no really good seats on AF 777s in Y :( It is the least pleasant plane in the AF long haul fleet in my view because of the claustrophobic 3-4-3 layout. Hopefully the trip itself will make it worth it though!!

lol, yes, last time I was on one of AF's 772s was a couple of years ago on ORD-CDG and back. I've mostly stuck with KLM when going to Europe up to now (not that their 77W are much different), but this time KL's return option to Brazil via Amsterdam involved a 12 hour layover at night, which I wasn't really looking forward to. The fact that I really love aviation makes me end up loving every flight though, once I found myself feeling happy for a 7 hour delay on my IAD-GRU flight which allowed for more spotting time at the airport :).

Thanks, I hope so too! :)

Nah, you made the right choice. As you say, the KL 77W is equally bad in terms of hard product, and the soft product is better on AF, with typically better food, Champagne (which should help you fall asleep ;) ) and broader film selection.

As I previously said, it's been a few years since I've flown on AF, so I don't quite remember the food, although I do remember enjoying the IFE system. It's good to hear they have a good soft product and I look forward to trying it. Perhaps I should even write a trip report :D ;)

Anyway, thanks for all the help with AF and the seats. I'll try to check in exactly 30 hours prior to departure and get better seats. Maybe if the AF soft product beats KL's I'll even start flying AF more ;)

Please do!!! ^