Good evening everyone. I too have a question regarding ExpertFlyer and how to decipher how busy the flight is. I'm on EK405 tomorrow night (MEL-SIN) and it's showing the following:

F4 A3 J7 C7 I7 O0 P0 Y9 E9 R9 W9 M9 B9 U9 K9 H9 Q9 L9 T0 V0 X0

Could someone please explain to me what this means?

Many thanks, Andrew

Means its wide open in all classes

Thank you very much. Is it as simple as just seeing that there's a number greater than zero in a few of the economy classes to realize that it's not so busy?

Thanks again.

9 (or 7 in some cases) is the highest number you will see for any RBD.

This does not actually mean that there are 9 (or more) seats available as availability of all RBDs might drastically change simply with one additional booking.

For instance, if F is empty and J is fully booked, you might still see the J RBDs wide open.

I am looking at a flight that shows F4, and Google Flights is selling 4 F seats. However when I go to the Emirates website and try to book 9 tickets for the flight, it gives me a price quote- suggesting that 9+ seats are available. In addition, the EF seat map is empty. Would there be 9+ seats on that flight, or only 4?

It means 9 are available.

Ef states what EK will sell and they don't oversell F but even at F4 A4 it means they will sell 4 seats at either F flex or saver but Likely means more than 4 are left.

I have a flight that is F4 A4 and 6 seats are left...

For F the maximum availability is always 4, just like in Y it will never show higher than 9. It means 4 or more, not exactly 4. And like m3red mentions, there are other fare buckets that book into first class as well, not just F

So for the last few days it looks like expertflyer is down. Anyone else not able to connect?

works fine for me

New to EF (yay!), am I right in saying that the following 2 flights are full in economy but some availability in first and business?

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...1f67ebe559.png

How likely is this to change, my flight is in 5 days time.

Thanks in advance.

A few weeks ago I posted my flight availability for BKK-DXB and DXB-MAN. Both were on Y0 with a week to go. Then throughout the week they jumped back up as high as Y7 on both flights.

On the day of departure BKK-DXB was showing Y4 and this was confirmed on check in and DXB-MAN was back to Y0... I was sulking in the lounge resigned to the fact I would not get an OP-Up on the first flight but still had hopes for the Manchester flight. To my delight my boarding pass changed in the BKK lounge and then at this point I was fairly confident of an Op-Up for my second flight. Yet this was not to be on the MAN sector, in fact economy was not even full.

It is good to use EF to get an idea but in reality it can be so unpredictable. A Y0 flight can become empty from missed connections and then likewise a flight that looks wide open can all of a sudden becomes oversold.

Completely agree with the above. I was thinking of gambling on an op-up on SYD-DXB (Gold and Flex Plus) last week based on the availability figures, with Y looking full and J pretty empty with just a week to go. I ended up taking a discounted offer and glad, I did as J went out with one empty seat and Y with lots.

The numbers just can't be relied on, or my knowledge of how to obtain and interpret them isn't up to speed.