explaining OCLI seating
 

Hi all

I have recently started flying long-haul domestic on a regular basis and so have some questions about on-line check-in because it has me stumped!

Good example was last weekend when I flew MEL-PER on a 737-400. 24hrs prior to departure, all row 4 greyed out, me assigend 5D. Recheck on morning of departure, 4F now open (all others still grey) so I snag that. Two hours before departure, 4D available which I prefer so took that (all others still greyed out) . In QP checked seating again and all of row 4 now greyed out again.

So far so good? Well - get onto plane and I am the sole pax in row 4??!! How does that work? (The rest of economy class, bar two seats was full, and there were not enough biz class pax to account for 5 upgrades.)

Second question: I know QF sometimes blocks middle seats next to plats, but at what stage does this happen? Several times I have used OLCI and seen a middle seat in the first couple of rows as being available for selection (even though the flight is not full). So I assume that is available. However, on this same MEL-PER flight, all of row 5 was showing as greyed out, but the B and E seats were free at time of departure (as I mentioned above - rest of plane was packed).

I have always moved myself from a block of three seats where all of them are shown as occupied and tried to move to a seat where there is one showing free in the middle. Is this a bad move because it may be QF that has in fact blocked the middle seat already?

I hope the above is clear... I'm about to check-in for another flight (again to PER) so your comments arte appreciated.

Regards

lme ff

As a WP you have it pegged; on many flights QF will block the seat beside you - it shows as 'taken' but is indeed empty. On really lightly loaded flights they will block rows!

Earlier this year I was a bit surprised when I found myself in Row 7 Aisle on a 734 with WHY from row 4 - tried to get more forward several times during the day (at least to the converta seats in rows 4/5) with no result.

On boarding I found I was the most forward WHY PAX of an aircraft < ¼ full; I was easily able to reallocate to row 5 after the seat belt sign went off.

Cheers - flew again on Thu night and same thing showed - occupied seat but it was just blocked. I will now stop mucking around with seat assignments given me by Qantas :)

Regards

lme ff

It is quite common for the first row in economy to be blocked, and it has nothing to do with OLCI. When I was flying between PER and CBR regularly, it happened pretty much every flight I was on.

The only explanation I have had is that it is for late booking CL passengers.

Being the CL capitol of Oz, CBR is a special case ...

OLCI or no, that is the question
 

So, does that indicate that you believe there is no significant advantage to OLCI for a Plat?

Most of my travel is O/S and so have not used OLCI before, but am considering it for a trip tomorrow.

As a Plat are you likely to get better seat assignment via OLCI, or by just trusting the system to allocate a good seat?

Consensus?

tb

Yeah, the seating is a bit weird at times. I wish they'd show where a seat is 'soft blocked' - then I could make a decision whether to move backwards to another row that has the middle seat free, or stay in that spot.

Oh, and I believe the checkin software can automatically block out seats based on where people have moved to (for trim reasons at least). Sure I saw that with a recent Dash8 booking.

I find is still worthwhile to OLCI. Saves hassle if running late to the airport or doing a tight connection/turnaround.

Yeah with both QF and NZ OLCI I find it annoying blocked seats show as occupied - have had to learn from experience how to identify likely blocks. Generally if switch seats the block doesn't move with you (unless get lucky and an agent notices and manually reapplies it), but there are times when it is still worthwhile switching IMO.

An example where still useful to OLCI is if flight is plat-heavy and your seating preference is forward aisle - you may get a seat well back and can improve with OLCI.