Any Way To Know How Full A Flight Is?
 

I am flying Lufthansa and I'm trying to find out how full my flights are. I tried doing a fake reservation to see available seats, as I've done with other airlines, but it does not let you see what the availability is.
Any ideas????

Seatcounter? KVS Availability Tool? Expert Flyer? There are many tools out there which can tell you the availability by booking class.

However, they are an indication a best and just because they are still selling tickets doesn't mean the flight has still seats left.

Do a dummy booking on the US Expedia site. It shows seat maps. But, as always, take with a grain of salt as seat maps are not completely accurate predictors of loads. However, it should give you a feel for the situation...

in the current situation it's really not easy to estimate the load factor because LH is still selling cheap eco tickets when they are already overbooked in Y. (good for the HON's and SEN's then because of high likelihood for OP Up)

But if KVS shows something like F0A0 or J0C0D0Z0Y0 then you know that the flight is going to be full.

Looking into the future .....AKA How full is the flight
 

Even if Everything is 0 - I mean everything - it doesn't mean the flight WILL be oversold or full or there are OPUPS

IF any airlines would ever Know it - then I would use them for Lottery numbers .

However - LH is extremely good at rev management.

And they always oversell Y in Summer on TATL due to lower C bookings.

So - even if Y9M9B9W9S9etc... usually Econ is packed and C is close to full.

But it doesn't mean there are Op-ups - especially not C-F.

And if there are C-F op-up - they definatley go to Status Passangers.
Y-C op ups sometimes are more random.

One option would be to lookin into the LH system - wher eyou can see estimates and booked - and on the day booked, estimates, checked in and boarded ...

So choose a good seat - and be happy when you board - either way.

It happened to me on TATL last week. The day before the flight they were still selling Economy tickets in all classes but I got an op-up to C with my cheapo S ticket. ;)

My return flight in a couple of days is currently showing F9 A9 C9 D9 Z9 Y9 B9 M9 H9 Q9 V9 W9 S9 :D Let's see how full it actually is.

I'd be annoyed if someone steals my exit row seat again without permission. :p

Thanks for all the info. I did the phantom booking on Expedia and got a good idea, thinking it was quite empty, only to read here that it's a lie
So I'll just wait till I fly and find out.

It's not a lie, it is just airline truth. ;)

This is what actually happened on LH431 ORD-FRA yesterday. Even on the morning of the flight expertflyer was showing: F9 A9 C9 D9 Z9 Y9 B9 M9 H9 Q9 V9 W9 S9. About 3 days before departure it was down to W5 S3 but other fare classes were showing 9 for some time.

I checked in online 9.5 hr before departure, got to ORD to pick up BPs 1.5 hr before departure and the check-in agent casually gave me a BP saying that "the fight is sold out and you have a complimentary upgrade". ;)

I don't know how long the flight had been sold out but the later ORD-FRA flight on the same day was showing fewer seats available in expertflyer. Perhaps the availability of the same flight (LH431) under the UA codeshare flight number (UA8837) on the morning of the flight may have been the more accurate representation of the actual situation: F2 C4 D4 Y0 B0 M0 H0 Q0 V0 W0 S0 T0 K0 L0 G0 P0 A2 Z4 E0 U0.

Try to look at the seat map it will tell more at least in Business and First that most have preassign seats, but even that some time not correct.
I had flight show F2 A2, the seat map and online check-in was with 3 seats from the 16 occupied the flight left with 3 on F:confused: but in other hand I add more than once that the seat map was with many free seats and at the end the cabin was full so not sure there is a real way to see how Full flight is...

I did check the seat map as well. When I checked in online 9.5 hr before departure the number of seats already assigned were: F 5/16, C 31/66, Y 208/260. I don't know what F was like in the end, but C was full (at least up to row 15) and presumably so was Y.

I suspect many of the C seats were eventually occupied by SWUs and op-ups like myself.