Return seats not released at t-72?
 

Flying lgw-rak, went to mmb at 11am t-3d and bagged previously blocked seats.

However, at 11am t-3d for the return there are still 9 blocked seats showing on expert flyer. Kept trying but no sign of them unblocking. Then out of curiosity looked up that flight in two days time- and even in 27hours time, and they are both still showing half a dozen blocked seats.

This is a pain as I am currently in row five and 1-3 are not actually occupied but blocked. Does the t-72 thing not apply to flights returning to the UK? Do I have to wait until olci opens to get those seats. Which would override any benefit I had from my silver status grrrr.

It is not strictly 72 hours before the departure time. Sometimes the blocked seats are released later in the day.

Thanks, I realise it's not exactly t-72 but I have checked tomorrow and Friday's flights too and they both have half a dozen blocked unreleased seats at t-30 and t-53 respectively. So it looks like they are not releasing the blocked seats at all on this flight?

Maybe some query on the equipment even at this late stage, and perhaps that sector is so low loaded that it doesn't matter too much. If there are trim issues then they may well block this until departure. I occasionally see it delayed until 48 hours, that's not unusual, I've seen it at 96 hours (all hours approx) over a bank holiday. If there.

The one case that springs to mind was when I was one of only 4 passengers going on an A320 to Rhodes around October last year. 4 cabin crew too. I was in row 1 as the only CE customer, the other 3 - who for some reason all worked for the TV provider Sky - were all confined to row 26! I turned my head around before take off to see a sea of empty seats. They were allowed rows 12 and 13 after take off, and they did move forward.