Help me understand
 

The news have been making a big deal about the seat chosen by the bomber on the Delta/Northwest flight on Christmas Day.

How was he able to get that particular seat (19A) at the last minute. Was the plane that empty?

There's nothing special about seat 19A on a Delta A330 other than it happening to be located over the wings of the aircraft:

http://www.seatguru.com/airlines/Nor...irbus_A330.php

It may be a premium coach seat reserved for elites until the day of the flight, but I believe starting 24 hours before takeoff the premium inventory is opened up for anyone to select.

Thanks.

The news had been reporting that 19A was a prime seat for detonating a bomb - close to fuel tanks, etc.

If it was a last minute choice then it can't have been chosen for such

CNN was using Seatguru to show where the seat was. It appears to be normal window seat that anybody booking can choose. The flight appeared to be full (as expected) and I would assume that window and aisle seats go quickly with later bookings (except elites and full fares) being forced into the middle of the a/c. So possibly he did not choose this seat because of the location over the fuel seats per se. Also, the tickets was paid in cash so I doubt that it was booked on line. The idiot first flew Sky partner KLM and I would tend to think that we purchased both flights on one routing. This guy seemed so dumb I would tend to doubt that he could have even booked a flight on his own.