Seat Change

My son booked seats on the Virgin site for his flight VS043 on 4th September 2011.
They have now unbooked his seats and just show a few other seats available.
As the aircraft type appears to be the same, can anyone explain why these seats would become unavailable please ?

Thanks

You son did not book a seat. He requested a particular seat that VS will try and meet but is under no obligation to do so.

VS lost all PE bookings on LGW flights a few months ago so that may be the reason why.

Your son should select the best seat that is currently available. Then he needs to check a few hours before OLCI opens as sometimes seats are opened up then. If not then they will become available when OLCI opens.

Only 60% of seats are available for pre-request and once that limit is reached the seat map is greyed out.

Hi Chris, thank you for your post.
This can happen for any number of reasons and it is always important to remember that your seat request is just a request and not a guarantee.

There might be a passenger or group with special needs and they had to jiggle a few people around to fit them in. If your son is travelling on his own then he would be one of the easier people to move.

Virgin have recently asked travel agents to not book seats for single passengers unless they have a specific request as this makes it easier to keep groups and families together and then the singletons can be allocated seats at T-24 and reduce stress and panic at the airport when people can't sit together.

Seat allocation is a very difficult area, there are also problems if seats are withdrawn from service if they are broken, they sometimes get blocked until they are fixed.

No definitive answer but a few possibles!

I hope your son has a great flight - Ed

Thanks for the replies.