See availablity from the seat reservation maps on websites of airlines?

Something which I've been wondering for some time now:

I've noticed the websites of several airlines like UA and CO feature seatmaps for all individual flights so pax can select the seat of their choice right away when booking their ticket, whereas many other airlines only allow ticket holders to pick their seat of choice 24 hours prior to departure, during the online check-in process.

Now, my question is: can pax also somehow book a ticket on CO or UA without selecting a seat (or be given one randomly by the system)? Because if they can't, then those seatmaps are actually a fairly accurate and up-to-date outlook on the total load of each flight and definitely a great tool for non-rev travellers to check the loads.

What do you all think? Are all pax given a seat by the sytem randomly, in case they haven't selected one themselves?

Never rely on seatmaps. Some people will not book a seat assignment, and some seats are blocked and will appear as booked when they're actually unoccupied.

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Originally Posted by ColoAvs19

Some people will not book a seat assignment

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But that's the point: is it still possible to do that? It seems not: the booking system seems to give you a random seat if you don't select one yourself....

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Originally Posted by ColoAvs19

Some seats are blocked and will appear as booked when they're actually unoccupied.

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That's true, although that's less of a problem then. Better think the flight is fuller than it really is, that the opposite.

For seat availability try using:

http://www.flightstats.com/go/Flight...vailability.do

You have to register and sign in but it is free...

Cheers.

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Originally Posted by flyer146

Now, my question is: can pax also somehow book a ticket on CO or UA without selecting a seat (or be given one randomly by the system)? Because if they can't, then those seatmaps are actually a fairly accurate and up-to-date outlook on the total load of each flight and definitely a great tool for non-rev travellers to check the loads.

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I work in UA reservations. NEVER rely on the seatmap as an indicator. You can definitely book a tickets without getting a seat assignment, and the system won't "automatically" assign you a random seat, whether you booked through UA, another website like Orbitz, or through a travel agency. I have seen many flights that were overbooked with quite a few seats still showing open on the seat map. Not a good indicator at all.

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Originally Posted by flassher

For seat availability try using:

http://www.flightstats.com/go/Flight...vailability.do

You have to register and sign in but it is free...

Cheers.

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I just tried checking the accuracy of that site by plugging in identical DL flights on Delta.com and Travel-net. Flightstats.com was way off on some and on one major route did not even show an available direct flight that had lots of available seats. Sorry - Two big thumbs down on that site.

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Originally Posted by Just Bob

I just tried checking the accuracy of that site by plugging in identical DL flights on Delta.com and Travel-net. Flightstats.com was way off on some and on one major route did not even show an available direct flight that had lots of available seats. Sorry - Two big thumbs down on that site.

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That surprises me....when you say it was way off is that because the loads you were looking at showed more seats available than Flight Stats showed??
Cheers

On one flight checked Flightstats showed 0 in bizz and 9 in coach. Actual were 0/12. But the killer was on checking another flight, Flightstats did not even show a direct flight with lots of seats available. It only listed several multi-connection route options. I checked also against the airline website seat maps which were closer than Flightstats. I'm a bit bummed because a tool like this would be fantastic. The big question is where is Flightstats getting their info.

Just did another Flightstats check. One flight shows 0/9 when actual is 0/21. Another two flights checked - Flightstats showed 2/9 open when actual is 2/62 and finally one showing 2/9 when actual available are 2/92! Those are huge discrepancies.

I have not checked or used Flightstats but it could be possible that they only show 9 seats whenever there are more than 9 seats available.

Not a good indicator if that is what they do.

Tony

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).

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

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.

Flightstats use Sabre as their source data. (note, this excludes all AA flights). There is also an issue that for several airlines their classification of 'coach' vs 'business' cabins is not correct, hence they sometimes show zero coach when there is availability and vice versa.
idDeals.com does a better job of forecasting actual loads and takes the hassle out of trying to decipher or guess. It does require a membership fee, but worth it especially for the hotel discounts:)

Try www.NonRevCheckin.com They take into consideration overselling and cancellations. You can also sign up for update alerts to be sent automatically to your phone or email to keep you updated to load changes.

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?

Just tried, with both ua and aa , seat map showed wide open, 9-10 seats, phoned, nothing available.

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Originally Posted by oswegobag

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?

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Try tripcheck on ASU Guide. I think you can get a trial subscription.
AA does not give info

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Originally Posted by bdeines1

Try www.NonRevCheckin.com They take into consideration overselling and cancellations. You can also sign up for update alerts to be sent automatically to your phone or email to keep you updated to load changes.

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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.