HELP! Errors deciphering Flight Availability using Fare Codes
 

I have a Mileage Run on Northwest this weekend... CLE-DTW-MKE-MSP-MCI. (I am happy to report that all 4 segments on the departing flights have been upgraded to First Class via my Silver Elite status. I am keeping my fingers crossed for the return segments.)

Anyway, on the returning flight MKE-DTW, I get the following Fare Availability:
MKE DTW 1228-1800/1228-2008 NW 1728 P5 F3 Y5 B5 M5 H5 Q4 V4 L3 T3 K3 (757)
and yet on Northwest's seat selector, it shows only 11 seats not filled in Coach (3 Exit Row, 4 Disability Seats, and 4 Preferred Seating).

My question is this:
Am I deciphering the Fare Availability correctly? It looks to me like there are a total of 37 seats available in Coach (Y through K codes), and yet the Seat Selector on nwa.com shows only 11 seats.

Why is there a difference in information?

Any explanations you can offer would be greatly appreciated. :-)

------------------
CO Silver, Hertz Gold, Starwood Gold

[This message has been edited by dzoellner (edited Dec 25, 2003).]

What you need to understand is the fact that airlines will oversell flights on a regular basis since they know that statisticaly a percentage of booked tickets are no-shows, standby on another flight and so on.

On a plane with 100 seats, they may try to sell 120 seats, counting on 20 not to be there at the time of departure. If 105 show up, they just ask for volunteers or they will bump someone off to another flight. Happens all the time. They would rather do that than leave with 20 empty seats.

The seating charts are often inacurate since they may not show elite and/or exits seats available. So the chart may under estimate the number of seats available.

I hope this helps. Bottom line for your flight - likely very busy!

There are only 10 seats available for sale. 5 in economy and 5 in first.

If one seat in coach is sold all fare buckets in coach decrease by one.

The seat availability isn't cumulative. It shows the number of tickets the airline will sell in that fare bucket, but the same seat may be counted more than once.

For example, Y5 B5 doesn't mean that there are 10 seats. It means that there are 5 seats that they will sell in either Y or B class.

Also, the availability is capped, so the tools won't show more than a certain number no matter how many seats are available. It's usually 7 or 9 (varies by airline), but maybe NW uses 5?

Finally, there are still a few people who don't get seat assignments at time of ticketing, so they would not show up on the seat map - that's why occasionally you see more empty seats than availability.

JetBlue does not oversell. How do they manage their loads?
I believe they only had like 3 bumped volunteers last year.

Thanks for the replies...

Is there somewhere I can look to see total number of seats available on a flight? These codes above make it seem impossible to see if a flight is empty or full.

Please advise.

Believe it or not, most airlines will tell you if you ask the right question. If you ask: "How many seats are available and how many seats are authorized on flight 123?", the agent will most likely give you three numbers:

capacity (total seats on plane in Coach and first)

Available seats: How many physical seats are still available

Authorized seats: How many seats they can still sell

The difference between authorized and available is the number of seats the airline will oversell this particular flight on this particular day. This can be an amazingly large number. My wife used to work for Delta (PS: Never fly them, trust me) so we have some insider information, for example on flights to/from Central America Delta would routinely oversell a 757 or 738 by 60 people and still leave with empty seats.

The other way of guessing availability is looking at the numbers at the tool. IF you see 7s or 9s across, the flight is open. If you see lots of low numbers (2,3,4) and no 9s or 7s at all, it is tight. If it is zeros across it is oversold, which does not necessarily mean you will get bumped. It just means it is really full.

Hope that helps

TIM