Flights sold out except for first class??
 

Fellow DL flyers,

I am in the process of trying to book some DL flights to Seattle from CVG in mid / late may and am having difficulty in finding availability. I've also seen this on other times and legs. Is Delta limiting the sell of coach / C+ seats domestically for some reason? When I look at seat maps, they are mostly wide open. Now, I know that seats may appear in the map that is not representative of flight load. I am finding if I call DL there seems to be availability, but through their app and website, there isn't. Perhaps there is a conference or cruise ships for that timeframe? Or maybe DL is anticipating schedule and equipment changes and therefore blocking out any coach / C+ seats for purchase? Or maybe it is my cookies allowing DL to try and upsell?

Unfortunately, I am forced to book business trips using Egencia which seems to hate Delta. I am trying to stay loyal, but if there is nothing to buy, how can I?

Do you have a flight in particular you are looking at? I seriously doubt it has anything to do with cookies but if you are truly paranoid you could try booking in an incognito browser window. CVG-SEA does not operate Tuesdays and Saturdays in May, nor on Sunday May 29th (the May schedule was reduced to less than daily several weekends ago). Google Flights is showing coach fares available on all flights in May, although there is only M bucket currently open on May 27th.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...4d7a9426a4.png
This is an example that I am seeing. If you look at seats there are plenty available, yet you cannot buy anything but a first class seat. Would love to know why?

Classic married segment logic. While flights may be mostly empty, if you look at bucket inventory on the individual flights, many only have H or higher bucket availability. DL has decided they can sell these coach seats for more money to multiple pax on non-stop or single connects rather than someone with a double-connect who is occupying seats on 3 flights and is thus simply zeroing out married segment coach inventory availability. I suppose one could argue they could at least offer some pricey Y bucket availability on these double-connects. ITA Matrix is pretty good at ferreting out some of the cheaper broken-fare options (layover longer than 4 hours) and more arcane routings, if you search over there. Most fare search engines (including delta.com) don't search broken-fare options very extensively.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...92905b30ec.png

In addition to what’s above, there are plenty of options that take less than 3 flights and 9+ hours of travel. DL isn’t concerned about capturing this market given their schedule limitations.

Best Delta option seems to be the 1 stop flight that leaves at 6:30 AM. That one is for sale in economy. Otherwise plenty of other one stop options on United, Air Canada, Alaska, American, etc

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...c8bd19269.jpeg
I’ve noticed the same issue into DFW. Very few connection options and half are sold out, even three weeks out. I gave up.
On this flight, C+ shows as sold out, but there are plenty of C+ seats on this leg and two “unavailable” on the connection. Don’t get it.

If it were me, I'd book CVG-MSP and MSP-YVR on separate tickets in economy, as the timings are sane and it's not particularly high-risk.

The seat blocking issue shown above is a different issue and covered in this thread -- https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delt...-occupied.html
It's not really related to the married inventory availability issue that OP is talking about (seat selection availability is not the same thing as fare bucket availability). Generally when encountering the seat blocking issue, people find the seats are actually still open for new purchases and selection. They just aren't available to people already booked on the flight.