undergrace

I am flying from Beijing to Amsterdam tomorrow and checked-in as soon as it opened. Economy was only maybe 30% full but I figured many people were like me and did not want to pay for an advanced seat assignment so that would not last long. KLM assigned me a middle seat automatically so my first instinct was just to move to one of the many open areas, but I really hoped to get my own row. I decided to pay the small fee to move up to the paid seats, thinking that was the best chance I would have to keep the seats next to me empty.

Now that check-in has been open for almost 12 hours I decided to check the seating chart again to see how full Economy has become. However, when I pull up the seating chart it no longer shows any availability in Economy - it only shows me the seats that are in my paid section or will cost more.

Is the Economy section really completely full? Or does it blank them all out because I paid to move up? I know this is a trivial thing but on United I could see seat availability for every cabin all the way up until a few hours before the flight, so I was hoping to have that same option here. I tried booking another ticket to see if they'd let me view seat selection in advance but I don't see that option. What does everyone think? Thanks!

irishguy28

As you opted to pay for a seat, the system won't now allow you to move to a "lesser" seat, and will instead only allow you to move to other seats of the same category.

Had you accepted a normal (no extra charge) seat, this would not have been the case - you would have been shown the entire cabin.

Usually, you can return to the online check-in page and change your seat; you can also do this on the kiosks at the airport, but the ability to view the seatmap (and therefore to change seats) sometimes is "lost" shortly before departure.

caliform

You can usually check it at the airport. Safe flight!