flylikelinz

Got front row C out and A back for tomorrow's HBO flight to AMS and back

Tobias-UK

You are in row 1 or front row of WT?

ShuttleRunner

I need to stop doing busy domestics... even as a gold you can't get row 1 last minute and I always seem to end up with a 'larger' non-status passenger in the B seat who insists on reading a broadsheet.

orbitmic

Again, theoretical seating in the way it is implemented is not primarily based on the seats but on the travellers. This is not a wish or a preference but just an empirical statement: if you move yourself to the last row of Y and theoretical seating has decided to keep the seat next to you empty, then the last row of Y will get the empty seat, and not the first row if it has been opened to anyone after you have vacated it which it frequently will.

As for your point about whether you notice or not, I'm not exactly sure what you are trying to say: I've done dozens of those flights and I notice. In fact, I personally notice people across the aisle far more when I sit in 1A on the 777 than on the 744 and as I have reported many times, actually do not feel "too close" to the person in 1K on the 744, largely because my natural outlook when I am in 1A on the 744 is the windows while they are actually much harder to look through on the 777.

This is just like the question of whether a seat is comfortable, not everyone has the same morphology or use of a seat or a space, and again, bar 1A/K on an A380 where you would really need to make an unusual effort to see people in your field of vision, what you see or not out of 1A/K in a 744, 777, or 789 is frankly a product of how you live your cabin experience with none of those being naturally shielded.

The difference on a 744 is that 1A/K are assigned to OWE status holders, and the angle makes it much easier to be aware of someone else in the adjacent seat. The fact that the seats are 'perfectly aligned' is the very reason that you might hardly notice someone across the aisle in the 777.

I think that you are confusing two things. Not being able to assign 1A/K is precisely nothing to do with theoretical seating. Blocking other seats is. The only thing that you are finding is that clearly for your flight, theoretical seating is not imposing any restriction at all, which presumably has to do with expected loads or status distribution.

The rest is not about "imagining that we are important". I did not ask for theoretical seating, and I am not the one asking for status to matter. If BA decided that the criterion for theoretical seating privileges was the colour of your hair or the first letter of your last name, it would still work in exactly the same way. It is just the specific way that the software is programmed to work, and despite what you say, there is plenty of evidence that this is the way it works, not only based on BA's experience but on the many other airlines which also use Altea. Of course, the algorithm is intended to be tailored to individual airlines specs in terms of which categories are privileged whether some seats are "off the market", etc, but the basics remain exactly the same, and the example I gave was not a one off but something I have already experienced several times.

flylikelinz

Sorry row 4 front row of ET

crazy8534

You are misunderstanding how this works: theoretical seating works in cabins where the seat choices are restricted by status level from the start. BA don't say: 'Oh there is a OWE let's start blocking the seat next to him/her', those seats are already restricted to OWE and so if another OWE decided they wanted to sit in the middle seat for a domestic/short haul beside whoever was in the window seat and not use the aisle there would be no attempt to stop them. It's just that people tend not to want to do that and because FLY restricts selection of those seats by others to the last possible minute the OWE has a greater chance of having a free seat next to them.

You seem to be trying to convince me of your own opinions on 777/747 F seating: just to be clear, you are welcome to think whatever you want!

As to what you are saying about status, I will just point out that you are the poster who believes that BA blocked out an entire row of an F cabin for you and a travelling partner who were at opposite sides of the plane, I'm just pointing out that it is a total fantasy.

orbitmic

You are either misunderstanding or misrepresenting what I am saying. What theoretical seating does is that it indeed assigns seats/rows for different types of high value customers, and it does that in a specific per flight basis, in such a way that when a flight is not fully sold, it will purposefully and explicitly keep more seats for those high value customers than there are in order to offer them free empty seats. That is what Amadeus is explicitly selling to airlines.

Unless I am mistaken, and I apologise if it is so, you seem to think that this is related to the "traditional" reserved seating (e.g. 1A/K in F for Gold, exit row seats for gold, etc), which is how i interpret your references to "those seats were never reserved for Gold customers. If this is the case, again, this is plainly wrong: the seats/rows that are being held for different types of customers are flight and expected-load specific and go well beyond the old seating restrictions (even though it typically comes in addition to them and does not void them for obvious reasons): the system does not say, "we'll always keep row 1 for Gold people the rest is free for all", but might say "on flight BA xxx on 13/7, the Gold area includes seats ABC +JKL on rows 1-12 while BA yyy on 15/8 might have the only three rows kept, or even entire rows. This is very well illustrated by the differences in seat maps seen by GCH vs SCH vs other customers provided by cws towards the beginning of this thread which, as you will see, include rows and seats which were not necessarily previously kept for status customers. In fact, in one examples that he provided it is explicitly the other way round as the only seat available to the non-status customer is precisely a (typically highly desirable) emergency exit seat.

And despite what you seem to think, the system is capable of entirely blocking some seats to all customers, gold included so that in effect, for example in rows 1-3 on a given flight, even gold customers might only see the A seats showing as available while seat B and C are showing as occupied (whilst in fact simply marked "T" on the seat map). This is why it is customer centric rather than seat-centric: the seat map is adapted to the people (how many, from which categories which, again, the airline is entirely free to define in any way it wishes, be it status or otherwise) and not on the pure frame. This is all quite well summarised in post 300 of this thread and on similar threads for other airlines, and indeed by Amadeus itself.

And I can only repeat that my reference to status is not in any way normative, but simply empirical, because this is plainly the way in which BA has chosen to use theoretical seating (again, see post 300 about that and other categories included). You can find it outrageous or great if you wish, I don't find it anything, I am just mentioning it as a fact in terms of BA's existing choice. As I pointed out, BA could have chosen to focus on other criteria but status and high yield are their key one. For example, some other airlines use theoretical seating in low load flights to "intelligently" manage the seating of single passenger PNRs vs couple and group PNRs. It works in exactly the same way when that is the case, and in fact, different categories can be used additionally and also prioritised. My understanding is that to our knowledge, BA is not doing that.

MPH1980

It's doing it's job for me tonight.

If anyone cares to look - I'm on BA98 YYZ-LHR, sat in 23K (right now anyway).

The middle seats in the WTP cabin have all filled, the aisle seat next to me is empty. If I try to book as myself again - I see it free, but that's to be expected (as I'm a GCH - I should get my pick of seats).

You'd have expected another single traveller to have selected that aisle seat by now.

However, I also expect that free seat will disappear tonight - the flight is looking pretty full.

To bring it back on the 'how it works' debate.

Two things:

1) People need to remember that it doesn't kick in until T-72. I saw this on my own flight. I was originally in 23A, and then someone came and plonked down next to me in 23B. Wanting to maximise the 'free seat' chance - I moved over to 23K. That person in 23B is still on his/her own - so I'm assuming they are a high silver or a gold too. But the point being that anyone (before T-72) could have selected 23B if they wanted - and was within the selectable seats for them.

So this is where the 'blocked for Golds' etc comes into play. Before T-72 - there are areas of the plane which are reserved out for statuses (Row 1 in CE for example). Between T-72 and T-24, those areas will still be reserved out - but other areas of the plane will also now be blocked thanks to theoretical seating. Depending on who is where and how much is sold/assigned, those areas will vary - you can't predict it easily. After T-24, it's then theoretical seating all the way.

2) A full flight is still a full flight, even a GGL is going to have people next to them on a completely full flight. An example of "I'm a GCH and I had someone next to me and there was an empty seat over the other side of the cabin" doesn't prove it's not working - it just proves that either a) There was someone higher up than you and thus their privacy was valued over yours or b) Both seats were offered to that passenger and they chose the one next to you for whatever reason.

orbitmic

This is an excellent summary of the situation as I have so far experienced it with both BA and other airlines using Altea.

I leave it in its entirety because you make a lot of important observations, but two particularly important ones:

1) as you say, the main thing we are talking about here is the "Altea departure control customer management" system. Altea offers many other software, but this is the important one here and it is meant specifically for flights which are under airport control.
[for a very brief description: http://www.amadeus.com/web/binaries/...management.pdf ]

2) the software is not about giving passengers more rights, it is about optimising the airline's operations and implementation of the airline's choice. As you point out, a full flight is a full flight, and for example, the very same software that prioritises who gets free empty seats also ensures that any seat relinquished by a missing customer goes back for immediate sale and so on. So ultimately, with the help of their full software package, BA's goal is still to ensure that everyone has neighbours everywhere and that no seat goes unsold. The prioritisation of unused space only comes as a much lower priority.

Final point, the system really is quite intelligent. I have seen first hand some of its capacities "behind the scenes" with another airline, and for instance, the level of complexity that can be included in the upgrade algorithm (which is also managed by the same software) is astonishing. Conversely, with intelligence come complexity and arguably fragility, which probably also explains several occasional failures of the system in recent months with consequences that many have been frustrated by.

adrianlondon

Just as a data point: I'm flying FRA-LHR in CE Monday afternoon. Up until a day or so ago (I didn't check every day) the closest to the front I could get was 3A, which is the seat I picked for myself when I booked the flight over a month ago (first leg of an ex-EU to Asia).

This morning, in other words a bit over 72 hours prior to my flight, I moved my seat to 1A.

I'm Silver (well, not literally, otherwise I'd struggle to clear security).

aks120

My friends are both blue and are flying out tomorrow to USA. They are on the same booking but cannot get seats together in CW yet when I look on Expertflyer there is a blocked seat next to one of them and a couple of blocked 'pairs' which would suit their desire to sit side by side!

When they phone to try and get a seat next to each other the BAEC chap was very sympathetic but said he could just put a note on their booking (they are checked in and flying tomorrow). He said check in staff may be able to do something.

Is this the FLY system working - I can't think why there would be so many random blocked seats in CW (mainly EF) and think it is silly that they cannot choose to sit next to each other at T-24.

Any thoughts?

aks120

corporate-wage-slave

Yes it is probably FLY in operation, but as noted up thread, just keep checking (without printing boarding passes), it is dynamic and at some stage it may decided not to keep seats back for Silvers and Golds. If, on the return, it is important to be sat together then they may want to pay for seats (or go off to HNL!). There isn't any point in ringing up, it's under airport control now.

Actually I can add a data point of my own today: £45 HBO Basic ticket, busy domestic flight, at OLCI I was awarded 1C with 1B blocked, 1A for Gold only and currently not taken. Window seat is my preference. So HBO still not taking preferences into account, but FLY is awarding nice seats.

lavajava

Would this be an example of TS or did BA just ensure I had a similar seat rebooked?

Just did LHR-AMS, had front section exit row seats booked on A321 a couple of weeks before. Before check in I notice my seat is now 23F because they moved the CE divider up to Row 10. My friend and I also had the third seat free.

Banana4321

Interesting one this I think:

Departing LIS on 23/09/16 for LHR, Flying BA flight 499 in Economy. GGL status.

On my ba.com seat plan I see that rows 5 & 6 are (as usual) 'unavailable'. I'm currently in row 7.

However on expert flyer the curtain is in the same place, the occupied/vacant seats are identical to the seat plan on ba.com EXCEPT 6C and 6D show occuplied (the remainder of row 5 and 6 is blocked).

Has anyone seen this before?

corporate-wage-slave

What this is, I'm almost certain, are 2 Gold cardholders who booked their travel way, way back, and at that stage the curtain was in (say) row 4. They nipped in and got their seats allocated, the curtain went backwards, the usual 2 (or more) cordon sanitaire went behind the curtain, but they were not at this stage shifted. They will be shifted if the curtain goes to row 7. Actually this isn't anything new or related to FLY, but later on their and your presence will potentially have some options coming up, depending on where the curtain ends up.