Hi guys,

I was just looking for the seat map for an upcoming EK flight Thursday night and noticed a sudden change in seat availability compared to a few days ago.

When I looked at the seat map a few days ago, there were around 50 seats occupied (by travelers with Skywards Silver or above or Flex tickets).

This morning I looked at the seat map again and the situation had completely changed. Now it shows about 50 free seats (so more than 300 already occupied).

It's well in advance and for sure before the 48h online check in window opens (should open tomorrow night). Also this is a flight starting in VIE and not a flight from DXB.
If the flight was leaving from DXB I would say ok maybe it's due to flights from other airports to DXB and people already checked in for the onward flight from DXB as well (e.g. a person has a flight from XXX via DXB to YYY and he is within the 48h window of his first flight and already checked in for his connecting flight).
But as this is a flight from an outstation and not from DXB, I would give this a very low probability.

So anybody has any clues why the situation of seat availability changed so dramatically even we're well before the 48h window of OLCI?

Does EK preselect seats for Economy? Is it something I missed in all the years flying EK?

I don't mind very much about the occupied seats since I will be in J anyways but I was just curious if anyone of you guys has the answer to that.

An entire school of 8 to 12 year olds is going to be on your flight - take ear plugs!!

I dont know, sorry

Haha I doubt that they all have Skywards Silver, Gold or Plat or are booked on Flex tickets. But nice try.

Any other suggestions?

Have seen this happen before. Usually it's a tour group of sorts. Do they happen to be blocked in a group? (usually aisles and windows would be selected first, however groups would be just be one large chunk of the aircraft)

I thought about a tour group as well but if I compare the number of empty seats (including blocked seats) on Saturday (more than 250 seats) and today (less than 80 seats) I thought this would be unlikely (group would consist of >150 people).

Furthermore I just noticed, that it's the same thing on my onward flight from DXB on Friday (suddenly almost all A/B/C seats are occupied and most of J/K seats).

Still have no clue why >100 seats just go away within a day (with OLCI not available yet)...

Emirates wouldn't be doing the same as SQ and the seat map opens up at T-96 while OLCI opens up at T-48??

Quick newbie question:

Where do you find this detailed info regarding seat allocations etc?

TIA!

MMB ( Mangae my booking ) , then go and try select seats and you can tell sort of how busy your flight is going to be ....

Thanks Flame,

The OP had more info on the status of the booked seats (fare class etc) I was wondering how he got that?

No, this is incorrect. Due to saver fares and below not including free seat selection the seat map on MMB is not at all indicative.

I am fully aware of that , i was under the impression that he was requesting about how to select a seat, it is can be seen as a indicator if the flight is T-48hrs ... apologise for any confusion

i think question was regarding seats available (Expertflyer) or exact loads (EK internal staff access)

I should have known you need someone on the inside!

Thank you.

MMB will only give you sight of the cabin for your class of travel, I'm guessing the OP used Expert Flyer as the comments relate tot eh Y cabin and the OP is in J.

I have recently experianced this on 3 of 4 flights shortly before online check in opened. Really simply they now have a automated app that tries to put peoples preferances and groups togeather into spots around the plane and blocks other seats in case they need them. That way when everyone checks in you people asking about seat movement. I think it will be more common going forward