I strongly disagree with this. Keeping unallocated forward seats empty on flights which have plenty of them at the rear of the plane would do wonders for loyalty.

As RichardMEL kindly pointed out what about those pax which change/book their flights at the last minute ? That is after Mr/Mrs No-tier have checked in. Is it right that those pax should have to sit at the back of the aircraft considering that they would be travelling on a much higher fare and statistically would be more likely to be a status holder.

For those who want a spare middle you shouldn’t really need to have a reason - just politely asking “How full is the flight” and then “Would it be possible to be allocated a window/aisle seat with a empty middle” at check-in/lounge/gate should do the trick. If that doesn’t work one could always try the “I’m me hear me roar” approach.

Now if only a baggage tag printer which could also attach the correct level priority tag to the baggage tag could be created….

QF have awful priority luggage system. When I was traveling within NZ. My luggage was tagged Priority. I think it was the 30th luggage with none priority luggage on the carousel first...
Auckland people was better. It came out 5th. I counted. The CX luggage system world wide still better then QF's system.

Called them this morning, was told that it is impossible, can only be done at check-in... Bummer...

PP

Putting into perspective though, how long did you have to wait for the luggage even with it being 30 pieces in?

I think QF does quite a good job with luggage tbh...just go try 3rd World US

Dave

I suppose QF staff also remember to actually attach unstrung priority/business tags to the routing tags... which is more than NZ seem to be able to manage to do.

Stil though - I would have though priority luggage handling was a valued enough service for premium pax to make it worth QF's while to have it run properly.

Maybe QF needs another preference to choose from. The I'd prefer not to sit next to anyone preference

As for needing a reason, you don't. Just ask them to block the seats next to you (chances are they will feed you some BS about the flight being rather full and not all passengers have checked in and blah blah blah we dont care about you....)

I have often checked in @international and changed my seat to be in the middle of a 1-1-1 (a seat either side of me) so that anyone being checked in would hopefully not be given one next to a WP!

Checked into my flight this morning. First flight to my destination today. Nearly didn't make it thanks to big problems getting a cab this morning! Made it by about 8 mins to the 30 minute checkin cutoff. (Checked in about 38 mins from flight. Sequence Number around 50)

Looked at the available seats on Quickcheck. Nothing free in the first 6 rows or so of economy.

Remembered this thread and expected to have 3 people in my row.

Entered plane. Sat down. Plane doors closed and I was wondering where my 2 "travelling companions" were.

First 6 or so rows had 1 or 2 people per side. There were no "3" seat blocks taken. Didn't see anyone in the middle seats in those rows. Plane actually looked a lot emptier than the Quickcheck map implied.

So. I'm wondering if a) QF is now blocking the middle seat off and not making it available for selection in Quickcheck if there are QFF members in that block, b) Magically people moved themselves into the middle seats and then moved themselves out c) The seats (all 16 or so!) were reserved for people that didn't show...

Looks like you got the "high tier" treatment of blocking off the middle seats this morning. Front 6 rows blocked means it was probably a trunk route and/or the others had already checked in (and you were the last??)...

COuld also be weight and balance issues - was any announcement made about remaining in your allocated seat for the duration of the flight?

Dave

thadocta's probably correct. Check your boarding pass sequence number and compare it to flight capacity. As you checked in late it should be appraoching the number of PAX for the flight.

eg 73H has a capacity of 168 PAX; if your sequence number is around 80 the whole craft would probably have a light load.

Don't recall it being a weight/balance issue, but have seen that happen before (actuallly checked in, then was paged to move back about 6 rows to balance the plane... along with other people of course, I'm not a sumo wrestler!)

Coming back today though, had pretty much exactly the same issue that Press Photog had.

Looks like it's a bit of a lucky dip these days with checking in. Maybe I'll have to start stealing Dave Noble's exit row seat! :D

Oih, you leave my exit seats alone :)

Dave