Flight Availability tool question
 

I have a return flight from Syd to Hkg coming up soon.

Availability for each flight according to Carlson Wagonlit tool:

Syd-Hkg F4 A4 J0 C0 D0 S4 Y7 B0 H4 Q0 M4 N4 K4 L0 V4 O4 (Boeing 744)
Hkg-Syd J4 C4 D4 S4 Y7 B7 H4 Q4 M4 N4 K4 L4 V4 O4 (Airbus A33)


None of the other flights show availability above 4 in J, but Y is 7

I've put in for an upgrade from Y to J for the return journey ... just wondering what to make of these stats.

I thought that if a QF plane had less than 7 seats left the number would be displayed, otherwise 7 would be displayed... is the limit 4 for J and F seats??? Wouldn't have thought that each flight would have exactly 4 seats in J and F left.

It depends upon what QF wish (through their systems) to advertise of flight/class availability to different fare sellers.

Have you done a 'dummy' booking and checked the seat map (via seat allocation)?

I would say the flight would be quite soon, as the x4 x7 type variances seem to appear in the last week or so. (i.e. It may have been J4 Y4 all until this week, when QF have decided to advertise more availability in WHY)

The QF flights shown by CWT always show a max of 4 for F and J cabins and a max of 9 for Y cabin. The number is an "at least" value, meaning there are "at least 4 seats" for sale in that class.

The old Amex ITN tool used to show a max of 9 for all displayed QF classes.

As has been remarked upon several times in this forum, take the figures shown on the CWT website with a grain of salt; they frequently appear to be significantly incorrect.

Thanks guys for your comments.

Have tried doing a dummy booking and can't get the required flights in J Class (although they show the seat maps in Y for at least one of the flights)

While I understand C/W can be unreliable - I'm not yet at the stage where I want to pay $$$ just for flight details. Maybe that time will come soon.

Once again, interesting comments - will see how I go in upgrade stakes!

The CWT version of the ITN that the FlyAOW page links to is using the WorldSpan GDS and the resulting availability data has proven to be unreliable for a number of airlines on a number of occassions.

Since QF's native GDS is Amadeus, the most accurate results would most likely come from that system.

Amadeus data is available through the [KVS Availability Tool].

That Tool also provides access to ITN-CWT-Apollo which is known to be more accurate than ITN-CWT-Worldspan and displays QF availability to a maximum of 9 seats (compared to 4 with ITN-CWT-Worldspan).

I find that for the $US5 its great to have
www.expertflyer.com
at hand at least while looking for award availability before the dreaded change

expertflyer, although a v good tool and, imo, worth the fee is still not perfect for checking on QF availability. I have had it show up U availability when in reality there is none

Dave

And vice versa I have had it show U0 whereas I could book 3 U seats on that flight via the QF online award booking engine. That may be due to QF FFs getting availability before others - not sure?