CloudGazer

One for the Altea experts?

Last night I flew on a nearly full flight. While arriving at the airport I noticed that a couple of seats that had shown as previously occupied in ExpertFlyer now showed as empty and available for seat selection.

I asked at the check-in desk if I could switch to one of the seats now showing empty and, without looking at the system, dismissed my request due to all seats being allocated already.

I know that before the Fly system was brought in the seatmap vanished at some stage before the flight and showed as under airport control. Would the info I saw in ExpertFlyer have been an accurate representation of the seating plan or is there a point pre-flight when it becomes inaccurate?

Thanks!

Lolbert

I have a similar question. I have just called BA to move seat for a flight on Sunday to a blocked seat which has been done but there is now a discrepancy between MMB which shows me in the original seat and Expertflyer which shows my original seat as available. Clearly the two go out of sync at some stage before a flight.

Krisz

In my experience Expertflyer seat map is accurate and even close to departure if I change my seat it does show the change immediately. I believe sometimes checkin staff is not going to look into the system because they were told the flight is busy and don't change anything. This happened to me before and it just could be that the flight is overbooked and not everyone checked in or there were flight delay and they have to move last minute people from a different flight.
I found lounge agents a bit more helpful and willing to do an extra phone call to check with other departments to change my flight or seat whilst checkin people just try to push people through as quickly as possible. So I would suggest if you just need a seat change just ask the lounge and not checkin.

Krisz

MMB is usually slow to pick up changes especially if other things changes as well. Again my experience is that it can take a long time before MMB picks up changes on flight. One workaround for me is to clear all BA cookies, etc and using a private browsing window, login to BA and usually MMB will show the correct seat.
Oh and my iPhone app for BA is even worse. Unless you completely log off, manually closing the app, log back in into the BA app can be days out of sync.

mrandery

I don't have much experience with Expertflyer, having just recently signed up for it.

One of the first things I did was to look if seats were available on the upper deck of a 747 flight I have in March. According to EF there were 3 available seats, in the middle area. Not according to ba.com.

Similar thing with an A380 flight also in March.

scottishpoet

My experience is that EF is usually very accurate

2 examples

At JFK, after check in for my flight closed, I showed the ladies in the lounge reception the seat map on EF and asked to move to a seat that had the seat beside it free.
They moved me and immediately refreshed EF and showed them my new seat now marked as occupied and the seat beside it marked as blocked thanks to TS

At SJC I was allocated 16E at check in desk and printed on my boarding pass. I walked to the lounge and checked EF to find 16E was front row of PE, but was marked as vacant. Refreshing my app with excitement that I may have been upgraded to CW, I found I had been moved not to CW but to 16A. As boarding started I got called to the desk for my new, 16A, boarding pass

BertieBadger

I'm another user who finds it to be very accurate and timely, reflecting changes of the type that scottishpoet describes.

I bought an AUP at LGW last summer, and EF reflected my old WTP seat as being free almost instantly (I checked out of curiousity to see if it would). It also showed it as being filled about 5 minutes later as WTP was hugely oversold (BA probably grateful for useful idiots like me in these cases!)

In another situation sitting at JFK I was refreshing it to see if my seat block would hold and the WTP seat next to me would stay empty. Cue dismay as EF showed the adjoining seat as having been filled, followed by brief puzzlement as my own seat appeared empty and a broad smile as an app refresh showed a happier outcome than scottishpoet.

corporate-wage-slave

I can't see your BAEC status but that may be Theoretical Seating at play here. Alternatively these are seats earmarked for OpUps and not yet allocated to the traveller yet.

That is normal but not related to the OP's situation. You're looking at Amadeus Seating on MMB, and now that you are under T-72 your booking would be on the FLY area. When you get to OLCI MMB, your Boarding Pass, FLY and ExpertFlyer will all align again.

I have never found an EF discrepancy that hasn't been explained by what actually happens on the ground, it is as accurate as it can be as far as I am concerned. Those with TS blocks can move their seats around and see the TS block waltz around the cabin with them.

rossmacd

The agent was being lazy. The EF seat maps are very accurate in my experience.

alex67500

I've read your wonderful thread on TS (Thanks!), and it's whet my appetite for more geeky knowledge. Are you aware of any threads about FLY and/or Amadeus in general?

SeattleDavid

I had this once at SFO. EF showed 64K being available, so I left the CX lounge and went down to the BA lounge and asked the woman on the desk if I could have 64K. She said the UD was completely full. She looked at her screen and told me it was full.

But then she asked me why I thought it was available and could she see my EF display. Once she had seen that she got on the phone and called someone and ascertained it was available, but she didn't have the authority to give it to me. She checked I was Emerald and told the person on the phone that I was and I ended up in 64K.

I thought at the time that it was unusual that they pursued my request so thoroughly - I suspect your experience might be more normal.

CloudGazer

I'm Gold and have my BAEC number stored in EF. The seat I wanted to change to was an exit row seat that was showing as empty (not blocked as some others were) so I don't think this was TS in action.

A few hours before I'd looked at the seating plan and all seats in the cabin were either occupied or blocked (including the middle seat next to me).

Tied up with availability of Y5 I'm pretty sure there were free seats in the ET cabin.

corporate-wage-slave

Thanks for that update. What happened on board? Were the seats taken? You can have Y5 and still be full after upgrades, there are also dead heading crew, standbys and ReAccom irrops, which can lead to blocks too. I'm guessing you were unable to move to these seats due to already having a boarding pass, but in the absence of that you can still leave the boarding pass download until around 50 minutes from departure - so long as you are checked in you've complied with the 60/45/20 minutes rules. But ruling all that out, it is indeed possible that the agent didn't look into the seat plan, there is an area on the previous screen which indicates passenger loads and capacity, which may indicate why they didn't bother to look further.

corporate-wage-slave

I've scattered what I've picked up over the years (purely as a customer) around BA FT, and I can't think of a specific BA geeks guide to FLY, maybe there should be one but I don't feel I have enough knowledge to fill that. I have a bit of a head start in this area since my other airline, Lufthansa, has a different version of the Altéa main product and have used it for longer than BA. So I knew about TS from my Lufty experiences - TS with them is more detailed / complex.

CloudGazer

I boarded early and failed to check! No help to myself else I'd have been able to answer the question