mannimagus

They were definitely not occupied, so I am assuming they (check in agents) didn't want to give them to people who hadn't paid.

ioto1902

Quite strange.

Does it mean that these guy are respecting strictly the SOP (and not the others agents) ?
Or does it mean that these guys are interpreting the policy on their own ?

Anybody has any idea ?

skywardhunter

Seats (incl exit) are definitely free of charge at check-in, I asked EK on Twitter yesterday but forgot to post here:



BTW: This is where an EK Lurker would be really helpful...

Dave Noble

I do not agree that it would necessarily be helpful and could well just spout out some general verbiage about seating and spam about some unrelated EK news/offer

skywardhunter

Yes, you said.

daisymay2

Exactly! Same reply from the Twitter team I had when asking about this subject last week.^

mannimagus

Thanks for that! Will keep this handy next time the check in agent tries to stone-wall me.

Will08

Does anybody know how up to date the seat maps are on expert flyer for any particular flight?

I have been holding off on purchasing an extra legroom seat for a flight on Monday due to the flight being half empty. I have been checking it every day however as of this morning it is now pretty much full compared to yesterday. I thought it might have been to do with online check in however that has not quite yet opened. What are the chances of so many purchases to a flight just over 48 hours before departure?

skywardhunter

EF is pretty much real-time in my experience. Most likely EK has just assigned seats to everyone as OLCI will be opening soon.

moral_low_ground

What do you think..... (btw, am a Gold card member on a Flex ticket)

Just come off a flight (in Y) and connecting to another flight (in Y) tomorrow which leaves in 26 hours. I went to flight connections to see if I could get a bulkhead as I see that row 17 (on the 777) is completely free.

Now, I think Bulkhead seats are only available for assignment at the airport within 24 hours so was sort of expecting to be refused but what concerned me is that the lady at the desk said that this was a paid for seat (which it has never been and I have reserved at the airport many times for free). I talked with her supervisor who also said that extra legroom seats were chargeable. Obviously I directed her to the EK website where it states that extra legroom = exit row and row 17 is not an exit row but she said that her controller had said it is a paid for seat and I can't have it.

So, I went through immigration (as obviously not going to spend the 26 hour connecting time in the airport) and went to the F/J check in area to ask if this was a change in policy. The lady there said that under the new rules bassinet/bulkhead were now only free/released at the airport from 6 hours before the flight unless the flight was really empty and they might release earlier. She also seemed hazy re paying. She said this was new ASOP but I think she was just trying to come up with an excuse.

It could be because I was asking at T-26 rather than T-23.59 that I couldn't have the bulkhead and I am fine with that. However, I am not fine if they think bulkhead = extra legroom seat that is paid for (unless they want to update the website), and would also be interested if the policy of only releasing bulkhead/basinet 6 hours before flight departure is a change from the previous 24 or whether this (6 hour limit) was always the case and is only now being applied.

Update....

I called up Emirate when I got home and asked them re the above. A person "Trained to meet the special needs of Gold Card members" answered the phone.

First he told me row 17 was an exit - after a bit of persuading, he finally agreed that it wasn't

Told me Extra Legroom fees included Bulkhead seats - I asked him to read his own website and policies and he finally conceded that Bulkhead is not part of extra legroom charges

He then told me economy is split up into 3 sections and the seats at the front are chargeable for everyone. I again referred him to the EK website and he agreed that Gold members don't have to pay for preferred seating.

He then said he would ring the airport. He did and said that they would try and assign me in row 17 but that I may be charged. At this point I asked to speak with his supervisor. Supervisor came on and agreed that bulkhead is not chargeable and that he would ask airport control if they could allocate me row 17. He stated he was not empowered to write to me to confirm that row 17 is not chargeable and that I needed to make a complaint. I advised him to train his staff along with the controllers and the connection desk as why should I waste my time trying to get EK to enforce their own policies.

extramileage

Clearly, there is a training failure here with respect to the new policies.

The situation is complicated by the fact that you are within the check-in window, but that doesn't justify the confusion.

eternaltransit

As well as that, there is a problem with the copy that gets sent to be published.

Clearly EK want to charge for any bulkhead row which has extra leg room.

However, that, in translation, came out as "exit row" - obviously in their minds a bulkhead row is an exit row, but any frequent traveller would say an exit row requires an...exit...to be classed as such (that's the obvious reading).

One wonders what the actual decision process of devising and publishing new policy is...

apkeene

I've just traveled DUB-DXB-KUL as a gold member for the first time since the new seating rules and from what I can tell the app classes any exit or bulk head row as "extra leg room" and I would have to pay pre check in to pick one. At online check in I couldn't select them without charge either. Once checked in, they were all marked as taken and I couldn't select them. Get to the airport to drop the bag where they were happy to assign an extra leg room seat to me free of charge on the first leg. They couldn't do the second leg as it was too early for those seats to be released so had to wait and see what was left when I got to DXB, where in the lounge they were happy to assign any that weren't already taken. With the tight layovers though there's not always time and on full flights they'd probably already be gone...