Seat Availability
Does anyone know where nonrevcheckin.com gets there laod information from? Is it the same Sabre system that flightstats.com gets the info from? If so, what is the point of joining? I see on the samples, nonrevcheckin only shows availability as "good" or "poor" or a few other opinionated methodologies. Are there any websites out there that have true #'s?
Try tripcheck on ASU Guide. I think you can get a trial subscription.Originally Posted by oswegobag
AA does not give info
mrs767er - NonRev Correspondent - Specialty Travel
Wherever you go, there you are
Fairly certain the poster of this message is the same person (Brad Deines) who owns and runs the nonrevcheckin site, so this is basically free advertsiting.
To oswegobag's question "Are there any websites out there than have true #'s?" I'd say definitely not. True availability information is well guarded by the airlines, for competitive reasons. Some airlines, though, publish availability information (not details) to OAL employees through their flight listing tools but in different ways. The FlyZED tool displays smiley faces based on availability information sent through Amadeus (e.g., 4's, 7's, or 9's). The BA and AF tools are homemade so they, like the ID90 flight listing tool used currently by AA, CO, F9, KL, apply a formula specific to their carrier, using true seat counts (not 4's, 7's, 9's) to display level of availability, so the smiley's or green/red lights you see there are much more accurate.
Mind you, 9 is the MAXIMUM they can show because all seat availabilty software derives the information straight from the GDS, so when they show 9 seats available, it must be read as AT LEAST 9 seats, since airlines generally don't offer more than 9 seats in one booking and anything above is considered a group booking, which must be cleared by them first.
Similarly, many airlines also just offer up to 4 seats for immediate booking in some of their premium classes (C, F etc), so if for instance you see there are still 4 C class seats available, you're safe to say that must be read as meaning AT LEAST 4 seats available, depending the airline.
In short: 4 and 9 are two numbers which should ring a bell and mean the flight is most likely having more available seats than those numbers tell you.
Have a go at flights of your own airline which you know are wide open and see how they will always be show as 4/9 or 9/9 (depending their premium class group booking policy) and then also check some almost full flights too: they should come in really close, like for instance 1/5 or 3/7 or something....
Oh, was it an AA flight which was missing?
AA isn't shown on any of the availablity software programs as far as i know, as they have explicitly demanded to be excluded from it and categorically refuse to share any availability information from any GDS for reasons other than a firm booking... the only exception that I know of that shows AA is flyzed.com.
Flightstats is pretty sharp, just as most other availability software and that's no surprise since they all derive their info from the same GDS.
The good thing about flightstats is that it's free, whereas for most others you need to pay. The only 'problem' with it (as well as with the paying competitors BTW) is that it does not know when an airline oversells a flight: it's not because seats are still sold, that seats are still available...
For that, the only possible source is the airline itself and sadly seat maps aren't a good tool to find this out either (contrary to what I once thought).
Last edited by flyer146; 28-Feb-2011 at 10:08 AM.
Migflanker (28-Feb-2011)
The only problem with that is the GDS shows authorized tickets, not physically available seats. NW was great at overselling the NRT flights like nuts. Alot of times by 50 or more in Y and 2-3 in J. So if it appeared wide open at 4/9, it could have 30/200 open, or it could actually have 2/-40 and still trying to oversell by even more
ColoAvs19 - NonRev Correspondent -Globe Trotting Consultant
I just checked it too, and it says - when you roll the mouse over availability - "9(at least)". So that means to me that there are at least 9 seats to sell...now...working for an airline that doesn't let it's own employees know the exact bookings (even through our employee portal) that doesn't mean much...HOWEVER, if you look a little closer, you'll notice the different fare types in the cabin (ie: Y9/J9/F9/C9/G0/F4 etc.). It's a pretty good indication when all the letters have the same number: 9/7/4 (each airline has a different policy in the number of seats they show per booking class) that the flight has plenty of availability. hope that helps!
my bad...just posted before I realized that there were 2 pages on this thread...oops!
That's indeed how I try to derive an estimate from the GDS too...
If I see only full fare economy booking classes being offered still, I can pretty much guess the airline is selling its last economy seats (or even overbooking the flight slightly!), but if I see 9 (or 7 for some airlines, especially closer to the departure date) extending way down the cheaper and more restricted economy booking classes also, I know the flight is wide open and the airline is most likely not overselling their flight: if they'd do, they'd do it on full fares only, not with heavily discounted tickets and certainly not to/from Europe, as bumping a pax is extremely expensive overhere thanks to some EU regulations.
Just tried, with both ua and aa , seat map showed wide open, 9-10 seats, phoned, nothing available.
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