racekp

I've had an upcoming flight change for an Islands trip in June, the flight # and time was changed but aircraft remained the same. 789 v1 (pretty sure it was v1 originally but may have been a v2, but none the less our rows 24 & 25 J/K were on both configs)

Within 2hrs of being notified I phoned to discuss the change and re align our domestic leg. The agent was very helpful and completed what was asked however when it came to reconfirming our seats herein lies the problem.

We (family of 4) are in PE and specifically booked and selected 24 & 25 J/K so our kids can have a window seat each and their first time in PE, upon re confirming the seats I was now told 24 J/K had already been taken and the only option was 25 J/K and 24 E/F (so middle 2 of 3). Agent was very sympathetic to our situation, but she did not have many options at her disposal. She tried to book us into 23 A/B but computer said no with a fee because of bassinet.

The upshot was when the flight changed seat selections were cleared and it appears a free for all lottery first in best dressed to re select seats, how is that reasonable and acceptable when our like for like seats were available and should have been preserved, we lose out. The agent did mention something about an automated change vs a managed changed when during an automated change seats are cleared for reselection but when its managed, seats get reassigned by a team. She has sent a request to the reservations team to have a look at it and I have emailed the Elite team highlighting my dissatisfaction.

I accept seat select is not guaranteed however when like for like seats are avail at the time of the change, surely it's not acceptable to allow someone to accept the change and reconfirm into (probably better) seats which they did not originally have? Not only do we lose the window seat we also lose the ability to sit together as a family and share the enjoyment.

Thoughts? Tell me I'm being unreasonable...and hard luck. It's not a great customer experience but that seems to be more and more the norm these days

edmm

I think this is something Air NZ handles very badly. We have had numerous disruptions and changes of aircraft over time, and you move from a situation where your carefully selected seats are lost, and the only available seats are poor, and often separated. Status and fare paid seem to be irrelevant, when it is their changes that have created the issue. They certainly should not be allowing a free for all seat selection when they have made a change.
They seem unwilling to do anything to fix this.

Thai-Kiwi

Yes, annoying but it falls into the ‘hard luck’ category. People do cancel and so free up seats that were previously taken. We all do this and you can’t blame other pax for snaffling the seats that you’d previously occupied. AirNZ do have the ‘power’ to provide you 23A/B free of charge as a courtesy, or 23J/K which are blocked for allocation by Load Control.

I was randomly moved from my preferred 03D on an upcoming WLG-AKL, and when I happened to notice the best I could do was 07D. No app or email alert, same 320 configuration so no idea what happened.

nzkarit

Quick question was this a new flight, could have people already booked onto the flight before yours got cancelled? If a new flight was your flight the only flight that got rolled into it?

Basically could people have already selected those seats & not be from your original flight?

nzkarit

Keep an eye out for the GG maybe? They often put the GG in 2 DEF and their support in 3DEF.

Often as flown on same plane as GG 3 times & 2 different GGs. And it has always been those seats. Would assume they also put PM there?

racekp

Thanks TK

100% accept when it's of the PAX making sure, but when AirNZ do it they should atleast make an effort to preserve selections. The load control seats were mentioned but she could/would not allocate them, she only mentioned T-48hrs to re check availability.

I too had the same issue on a domestic A320 a few weeks back, got moved for no apparent reason from 6C, again away from pre selected family seating.

racekp

It was a new flight # and +3hrs departure time over original. It is possible but unlikely.

Its only 1 flight a day. When I did a dummy booking before I confirmed the change, PE was not available/sold out

Thai-Kiwi

I see there are a few biz sales to certain Pacific destinations. Maybe have a look to see if buying up from PE to J doesn’t cost too much - depends on what you paid for PE, but Biz is on sale AKL-NAN for $615 in mid-Jun. And think of the hero status you’d attain with family!

JayKiwi

This is what is so infuriating in the present-day Air NZ for Elites. Any concept of prioritisation in sorting you out in the case of irregular ops or schedule changes, and it is faster-finger-first on alternate flights, seat re-selections, etc. Basically, you are left to sort yourself out, and proactive contact seems to be a feature of the distant past now.

CHCflyer

As often a late booking, high fare, elite passenger I usually get the choice of a B seat or anything above row 15 when tripping to AKL on a $800 fare.

edmm

The obvious answer is specific seats for Elites, but it seems they are not willing to do that.

nzkarit

Or just opening up front seats to Koru at t-48 or t-24.

NZJuniorDoc

I mean without wanting to be an air NZ apologist, how do you know that those seats were not taken by another elite member?

I’m curious also why not 24 A/B 25 A/B? Were they already taken up?

The other think you don’t know if whether if in the process of the reallocation, there might be a background algorithm that automatically assigns EF JK for a group of 4 rather than 2 x JK seats. Just hypothesising a little about systems we may not know about.

racekp

24 A/B 25A/B already taken. Basically the only options were the middle seats. Unsure where they had us seated prior to me requesting the same seats be allocated. I can only assume based on availability we would have been split as the cabin looks pretty full bar preferred paid seats and ops blocked.

They may have been taken by another elite member but my point is allowing them to be taken in the first place regardless of status, how hard is it when the same seats are avail on the substituted aircraft to retain seat selections.

The EF & JK are not even in the same row if their algorithm is assigning so I don't think that's in the picture.

It's just been yet another lolly scramble of winners & losers with no real logic or sense

racekp

Just to close this one out, have a reply from the Elite team via email and as suspected a pretty standard response of seats are not guaranteed, can be changed as any time for various reasons, safety, ops requirements......due to aircraft change team do best to allocate like for like seating however in this case best available were provided. Nothing more they can do.

The issue for me was had they actually reallocated seats rather than the lolly scramble, rows 24 & 25 J/K exist across both cabin layouts so should have been a simple like for like

In a last resort request I have asked for 25 E/F currently allocated to load control rather than 24 E/F we have now, so atleast the family might be able to sit in the same row, I'm not holding out much hope in the request being successful.

Let's hope for an aircraft change back to a v2 sometime before departure