AAaLot

It seems that waiting to give seats out benefits Qantas, not its flyers.

If it truly was of benefit to its flyers they would be insisting on having this service on international (i.e. AKL-LAX) service.

Why have I not heard one voice wanting lack of seat selection on intl segments?

Mwenenzi

Always benefits me as often book or change flights the day before

Always benefits me as has never pre-requested a specific seat, but get my seat preference

AAaLot

Well at least this is a consistent answer. Qantas should NOT assign seats for Domestic NOR International, but always go towards the freqent flyer preferences.

We we be in favor in having Qantas stop international seat selection?

Dave Noble

It is only fairly recently that QF have introduced it generally; they used to only offer it to/from the LOTFAP. I have 1 reason for liking it on international since, as a QF Platinum, I can get the exit row assigned, otherwise I'd be all for not having it.

the system benefits Status members of the QF scheme and , as has been stated ad nauseum, ensures that those high status members booking a day in advance still have a damned fine chance of getting their preference of seat

Dave

AAaLot

Why cant I get a seat preselected for SYD-PER 5 hours?

Why can I get a seat selected for SYD-AKL 3 hours?

Does that make sense?

Why is it of benefit to me on one, but not the other?

Dave Noble

One is international , one isn't. Why can I get a meal on BOS-LHR on AA but not on HNL-ORD?

Dave

AAaLot

Meals on AA are based on time of day of flight and distance, not international or not.

I ask my questions again why is being able to select a seat on Qantas sometimes a benefit and sometime not?

ANstar

Dave Noble

Actually they are not. AA provides meals in economy on international flights only; travel on an 8 hour domestic flight and they offer "food for purchase"

Same concept; one is a long DOMESTIC flight with no service whilst another is shorter INTERNATIONAL flight with fulll meal service

Qantas offers the facility on International but not on domestic.

It would seem to me that most frequent QF domestic travellers who are QF scheme members are quite happy and content with it so why change ?

Dave

Yada Yada

Hey, I might try that!

And it will avoid me getting bumped by FAs and their trollies, which usually happens at least once every time I fly on a squishy 737.

- Peter

shillard

Yes, there can - but "longer-flying" has nothing to do with it.

By status, alphabetically. So Aaron Aarons will always get an aisle seat in front of me, so long as we are both of the same status.

737 flights are notorious for SGs getting to sit down the back - if you have 16 WPs in economy, that's the first 8 rows of aisle seats taken out.


NOTE TO QF LURKERS:

DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, CHANGE THE CURRENT SEAT-ALLOCATION SYSTEM.

shillard

Dude - build a bridge, and get over it.

Nobody of any worth to QF wants the system messed with - you'd be lucky to find one QF elite who would be happy for the premium seats to be snagged 12 months out by the plebs.

It works fine on INTERNATIONAL flights because QF only allows a certain percentage of seats to be pre-allocated, with exit rows and other premium seats reserved for elites. What's not to like?

We like it - just as we like getting food on a 5hr domestic flight. Whilst the US has the edge on Australia in pretty much everything - from gun laws to petrol prices - your airline systems are distinctly third-world.

Which could explain why most of your airlines couldn't organise a good time in a brothel, even with a fist-full of Ben Franklins....

The QF Seat Allocation System is the BEST IN THE WORLD - BAR NONE.

NM

Domestic and international flights have quite different characteristics which can be handled best in different ways. In Australia, the vast majority of domestic routes are serviced by a large number of daily flights and bookings are very fluid. People change flights and bookings regularly. If people were phoning the QF reservations call centre each time they made a booking or changed a flight (often done through a travel agent and not direct with the airline) in order to select a seat, the number of call centre staff required to service these requests would add significantly to the cost overheads of the airline.

And the very successful computer overnight allocation system has worked very well for Qantas for a long time, and from well before on-line seat allocation facilities were a reality at other airlines and at a time when it could only be done with a phone call to a call centre.

So Qantas has saved a fortune over the many years of having this policy in place. With current Internet and back-end technologies it would be possible to permit status-based seating pre-allocation over the Internet, but Qantas has built a system that works well so there is no need to tamper with it.

But international flights have different characteristics. One of those is the fact that they may be departing at any time of the day or night as far as the Sydney based computer systems are concerned. So there is no overnight batch processing window where the seating systems can be shutdown while the automatic allocations are performed.

Another difference is the smaller number of flights on a particular route and hence less chopping and changing of bookings. So the bookings tend to be more stable for international flights compared with domestic flights. Someone who books a specific international flight is more likely to actually fly on that flight than someone who makes a booking on a domestic flight.

Note that Qantas only permits pre-allocation of international flights until a certain portion of the cabin has been allocated. Once that limit has been reached, only elite members can pre-allocate and only upon special request. The remaining seating allocations are done at the airport at check-in. This is to ensure that family groups have the best opportunity of being seated together so long as they turn up at the airport early for check-in.

These different flight characteristics seem to make more sense to me than the difference between whether or not food is provided on domestic or international flights.

So Qantas has a system for both domestic and international that works well for each of those types of flights. It has saved them huge operating costs over the years and may also be one factor that contributes to the difference in operating profitability between Qantas and some other airlines that has used call centre agents to perform seating allocations on domestic flights, as well as saving a great deal of my time by not needing to make those seating allocation telephone calls or Internet surfing time over the last 20 years that I have been flying domestically in Australia. I just turn up at the airport knowing my seating preference has already been allocated for me, even if my booking was only made the day before the flight.

Its just as some of us oldies Aussies will remember from Louie the Fly in his commercials - When your on a good thing, stick to it. Or the old saying that if it ain't broke, then don't fix it.

Globaliser

I think you mischaracterise the views of those who are used to the QF shorthaul system. It's not that I prefer not to know in advance. The true position is that I don't care that I don't know in advance, because I'm content to trust that the system of which that is a feature will produce a seat with which I am happy.

I also don't care that I don't now in advance when I fly BA shorthaul.

If QF operated the same allocation system on international flights, I would equally not care if I didn't know my seat number in advance.

In fact, on my most recent QF trip, I would actually have preferred the domestic system to the current pre-allocation system, because I booked at 5 days' notice. Instead of getting allocated a seat in the high 30's (the very front of economy), the furthest forward that QF could do for me was 43. I'm confident that the domestic allocation system would have got me a seat further forward in economy.

As it turned out, it was academic because I ended up in J. ^On most QF international routes, there's little scope for changing aircraft without causing significant disruption to pax and yield management. Same, IME, for BA.

AAaLot

Globaliser and NM

VERY honest answers that I can accept. The system stays the way it is because it is of benefits to Qantas at this time and its FFs accept it.

Some day, as it has happened in its international segment, Qantas domestic will have less aircraft changes. At that point Qantas will go to the traditional seat selection method [because it will cost them less] and its FFs will also accept it.

Seat selection works the way it does because Qantas is making a rational economic decision.

Having said that, I still rather have my seats pre-selected rather than trusting the system