Leaping_Deere

Flying to ATH end of the month and they have moved myself and Mrs Leaping_Deere out of exit row seats.
On the return leg the exit row seats were not available, but I put that down to already allocated but now both legs they are unavailable.
The extra leg room is nice on a longer short haul but hey-ho life goes on.

Im not overly concerned, just curious. It was a gold priority reward booking, so would that make the difference? I cant (by my rank amateur search) see a aircraft change either.

corporate-wage-slave

GPR would not be the cause, Amadeus Seating is post-facto the ticket payment type.

Are you certain there has been no moves of equipment, even if temporary? No curtain moves? Expertfyer will indicate if a seat is blocked or occupied, is that how you know they are "unavailable"? The reason I quiery it is that if the aircraft stayed as an A320 (say) and the CE curtain didn't move then usually your seat won't move either. Equipment changes and curtain movements are the main reasons usually for seat shifting, equipment failure (seat malfunction) would appear from T-72 hours. If there were toddlers on the booking then that can also cause seat movement due to the presence or otherwise of the additional air mask. The only exception I can think of in this space is if you lost Gold status and went down to Silver, loss of exit row would often ensue.

ThatT1Feeling

Is this a case of the curtain moving back? Or maybe BA is blocking an additional first few rows of Economy as they expect that there will be more demand for Club.

If you're keen on seeing if the seats become available again (probably 3 days before departure), it's probably worth taking out a subscription to ExpertFlyer and it will look out for the seats becoming available again in the future.

If you share the exact flight details (Flight number and date), I could have a look on EF for you.

Leaping_Deere

I say unavailable as they look blocked, or all occupied. IIRC when I chose seats at booking it said 320 and it says 320 again, but Im only going on my memory.

Curtains move sounds most likely? never considered ATH a CE heavy route, does it get alot of connections from TATL Mr wikiba CWS ?
I'm not demoted yet I am going down to pleb status with TK, perhaps they told BA

That would be brilliant, I did try the free trial of EF when I first got into FT, but I got confused by the (then) new terminology and never subscribed

BA640 27/07 outbound
BA639 28/07 inbound

corporate-wage-slave

Mystery solved then. CE is down to row 12 inclusive, so the exit row seats are now in Club Europe. In the case of the 28 July service it is looking very full in Club, on the outbound less so and the exit row seats are still empty there. Even in row 13 you now need to aware of the risk of curtain roulette. Yes, BA have developed in the last few years a bit of a niche market for USA/Canada<->Greece travel. Someone in BA said that a couple of years ago there was quite a lot of media exposure in North America to Greece as a holiday destination and BA have tapped into that, hence the expansion of Greek services from LHR. There was even talk of moving SKG from LGW to LHR, but that evidently hasn't happened. The CE product seems to be selling very well on these flights at any rate, but you may be offered a POUG or AUP if they need to cram everyone in somehow.

If there are heavy sales in the next week or so, it may end up as an A321 service.

ThatT1Feeling

Well, for your outbound on 27th, It's an A320 as you say. The CE cabin now goes back to (and includes) Row 12 which means both exit rows are now in club. Currently the flight is showing as J9 C2 D1 R0 I0 Y9 B9 H0 K0 M0 L0 V0
N0 O0 Q0 S0 G0 which I interpret as meaning that BA could continue to sell (relatively expensive) seats in both classes and will see how that pans out over the next couple of weeks.

The Club cabin has a lot of seats allocated, but nothing in Rows 1 & 2 (I am guessing Gold Block) and nothing in Rows 10-12 (I assume because these rows have just become available - but they're not blocked which I assume means that they could be booked by Club passengers, making a curtain move back to Row 9 less likely.

For the inbound, it's J0 C0 D0 R0 I0 Y9 B9 H6 K0 M0 L0 V0
N0 O0 Q0 S0 G0 so BA's not looking to sell any more Club tickets, but Economy is open for a few more sales.

Again, An A320, Club to Row 12, nobody in Rows 1-3 but a lot of the Row 10-12 seats are already allocated so there really won't be a curtain move further forward!

Hope that helps... and I was hoping throughout that I wouldn't be beaten to the answer by C-W-S but he is an enigma wrapped in a paradox and clearly types quicker than I do

LTN Phobia

There has indeed been a noticeable and sharp increase in American and Canadian voice on BA flights to Greece (particularly to ATH) as well as at the actual Greek destinations since a couple of years ago and I was wondering why. Now I know.