thadocta

I find this somewhat bizarre. You are basing your flight selection based upon what seats you can get, rather than when you actually need to travel? Seriously, you need to get a life.

If the flights were only 30mins or so apart, and I can get a better seat on flight versus the other, then I would choose the better seat.

Otherwise, I will always go with the flight that suits my plans better, and choose the seat accordingly.

But to say that you are choosing the flight based purely on what seats are available is to me somewhat bizarre.

Dave

Dicksbits

As a leisure passenger and someone who's 6'3" tall, getting the right seat, even on short haul, is a consideration worth weighing up. When there are several flights a day to a certain destination, it's something most FT travellers would consider.

gcuk

I'm with dicksbits on this one and I don't think it's bizarre at all. For my upcoming trip home from New Orleans, I had a choice of flying through 4 different airports, all with minimal departure, arrival and journey time differences. Only two flights had my favourite seat (64K) available so I booked one of those.

thadocta

As someone who is also a leisure traveller, I am not going to make my flight determinations based purely upon aircraft type. If there is an hour or two in it, I may consider it (note, I said *may*) but as a leisure traveller I willo base my flights mainly on the times and the dates of when I want to fly. To delay - or to bring forward - your flights based purely upon the seats is to me me somewhat more than irrational, in fact bordering on more than irrational.

To each their own I suppose......

Dave

thadocta

Would you seriously delay your flight by a day or two because you could not get your desired seat?

Seriously, some of us NEED to travel, we will pick the best seat that suits oiur needs, but overall we will consider schedule first, and then seat second.

If the seat suits the schedule, then seat wins. If the seat does not suit the schedule, then the schedule wins.

I will always pick the schedule first, if I have the option of choosing between different seats, and if it works, then ok, otherwise, always schedule first.

Dave

gcuk

Dave, did you read my post? I said 'I had a choice of flying through 4 different airports, all with minimal departure, arrival and journey time differences'. To see which seats are available in advance of booking is helpful to me. I can't currently do that. That was my point.

windowontheAside

But what if you don't NEED to travel on any specific day?

As a leisure traveller you might fancy a week away somewhere. You could leave on any day during the week - why not use seat availability as a factor?

I've done this in the past - equally, on other trips where I've wanted (rather than needed) to travel on a particular date then the schedule wins.

Each to their own Calling this behaviour irrational is somewhat irrelevant - you are of course entitled to that view but it adds little to this debate.

Dicksbits

I have the advantage of working shifts with quite a lot of rest days blocked together, hence why I will look for the best available seats on several flights as I see this as part of the enjoyment of the whole experience. As I said I am very tall and don't enjoy being crammed into a seat with legroom that is hopelessly inadequate for an hour, let alone 1-4 hours short haul (or longer in long haul). I understand that this time luxury is not affordable to a lot of people, and in those circumstances, schedule would be paramount.

A good example of this is the NCE route. LCY were operating an E170 on this route on 10 Apr, not an E190. I recently flew on the former from DUB to LCY and it was an uncomfortable ride for someone of my height in 7B. I couldn't even sit properly due to the lack of legroom and my long legs (an envy to many, I know). I decided to switch to LGW and take an exit seat for NCE (there are no exit seats on an E170).

We're all going rather off topic here, but I hope BA have sorted the system bug soon!

thadocta

Sorry, I am one of these people who book their flights based upon when I need to travel, and I generally only have about a day or two lee-way (rarely more than that). I base my bookings on when I need to travel, and book based on that (with about an hour or two lee-way).

I would like to have the luxury of being able to adjust it by a day or three, based purely on the seat that is offered, unfortunately I don't.

Good luck to those that do.

Dave