V-Flyer

I've been checking in MMB to see if the seat map appears prior to OLCI which, having read several helpful posts on here, it seems to do. Our flight is Sunday 13th, VS85 to Vegas. I checked this morning and saw the seat map had appeared a full 26 hours before OLCI opens up.
All seats in PE were showing as free, but the system would not accept my request for any seat, even though they were all showing as available for selection. Every time I tried to select a seat the system just displayed a message - "this seat is unavailable - your current seat is unchanged". I continued to keep trying every half hour or so until, about 4 hours later, all seats suddenly appeared as unavailable with VS allocating us 77A and 77C in the bubble. We're actually quite happy with those - Mrs QH was really worried that we would be allocated in PE downstairs.
It seems that seats are being firmly allocated by VS prior to OLCI and if the flight is full/busy, there's no opportunity to select your preferred seat.

I'm not the most knowledgable in these matters but I'm pretty sure that this is the case with all LGW PE seats at the moment due to the refurbs taking place.

That said, great piece of luck to be in the bubble - not sure you could have bettered that!

Have fun in Vegas!

nibbs

Others have reported it not only on here but on the VS Facebook page. VS are probably allocating seats to ensure families are seated together but I wonder if they also suddenly realised that there would be a surge of people trying to nab the best seats the minute OLCI opened and therefore were making a pre-emptive strike?

Whatever the reason roll on the new system. Nabbing your seat early is an essential part of the experience for me!

just like the old days then ! you got to the airport to find out what seat they had allocated you.

If the agent liked you they would say "I've given you some nice seats" and they would be.

If you upset them they would still say "I've given you some nice seats" but put you in the middle, near the family with the screaming kids and the toilets and galley.

It will be fun come November when OLCI opens for flights where nobody in any class has been able to pre-request a seat. Even worse than BA as at least with them you can pay to get the service or get it free with status.

"Window or Aisle, sir?"

preiffer wrote:"Window or Aisle, sir?"

And Smoking or Non Smoking :0 :0

In those days, BA First Class had small packets of cigarettes for passengers to help themselves to.

How times have changed

buns

stevebrass wrote:Whatever the reason roll on the new system. Nabbing your seat early is an essential part of the experience for me!

I am with you, Steve. the current uncertainty is horrid. I hope they sort out a good system otherwise it'll be like flying Easy Jet or Ryan air - when apparently once those doors open people make a charge for a seat on the plane v(

buns wrote:

preiffer wrote:"Window or Aisle, sir?"

And Smoking or Non Smoking :0 :0

In those days, BA First Class had small packets of cigarettes for passengers to help themselves to.

How times have changed

buns

I for one am glad that times have changed. If you got to the airport late you got stuck in the smoking section. The worst part for me was that even the smokers didn't want to sit there. They'd just pop over for a smoke and return to the relatively smoke free area

Hev60 wrote:I am with you, Steve. the current uncertainty is horrid. I hope they sort out a good system otherwise it'll be like flying Easy Jet or Ryan air - when apparently once those doors open people make a charge for a seat on the plane v(

Mmmm. Three years of flying Easyjet twice a week show this to be more than a bit of a misrepresentation. I rarely saw anyone approach the aircraft at more than a saunter. The pain was having to stand in a queue in the terminal for three quarters of an hour...

And both Easyjet and Ryanair are trialling seat allocation....

Quick Hits 1c wrote:I've been checking in MMB to see if the seat map appears prior to OLCI which, having read several helpful posts on here, it seems to do. Our flight is Sunday 13th, VS85 to Vegas. I checked this morning and saw the seat map had appeared a full 26 hours before OLCI opens up.
All seats in PE were showing as free, but the system would not accept my request for any seat, even though they were all showing as available for selection. Every time I tried to select a seat the system just displayed a message - "this seat is unavailable - your current seat is unchanged". I continued to keep trying every half hour or so until, about 4 hours later, all seats suddenly appeared as unavailable with VS allocating us 77A and 77C in the bubble. We're actually quite happy with those - Mrs QH was really worried that we would be allocated in PE downstairs.
It seems that seats are being firmly allocated by VS prior to OLCI and if the flight is full/busy, there's no opportunity to select your preferred seat.

I reported the same thing last week before our flight out to MCO. At OLCI stage however there were some options for us to change to, and our flight was as full as it possibly could be, so it wasn't like there were loads of spare seats around (2 standby pax were even sat on the crew jump seats for the entire flight.

"And both Easyjet and Ryanair are trialling seat allocation...."
I assume that is one of their many 'extras' but at the end of the day as good decision.
My son flew Ryanair last summer and his whole party were seated all over the plane. Most on board concurred the boarding process had been like a rugby scrum n(

Hev60 wrote:My son flew Ryanair last summer and his whole party were seated all over the plane.

I've seen that happen to larger parties who have been to the rear of the boarding queue...

Hev60 wrote:Most on board concurred the boarding process had been like a rugby scrum n(

...but as I said I have never experienced this in several years of regularly flying LCC within the UK and Europe.

That said, I presume it depends on how good the ground staff are at imposing some discipline at the gate itself. Most of my flights were business related to business destinations at ungodly hours with regular users of the routes who had an idea of practice and protocols involved. These were occasionally disturbed by someone - usually with an ostentatious FF status luggage tag on display - marching to the front of the queue exclaiming "I have Speedy Boarding!!!" only to be be told "So have the 70 people already in the queue so please go to the back....". I didn't feel sorry for them but I did feel feel sorry for whoever had booked that flight for them as that unfortunate was clearly going to receive an anlmighty dressing down.

Edited to add: I'm not a fan of unassigned seating. Even with arriving early at the gate, always paying for Speedy Boarding and always, in the end, getting the same seat on the aircraft I still felt tense and often had to stand in a queue for a half hour or more.

Hev60 wrote:"And both Easyjet and Ryanair are trialling seat allocation...."
I assume that is one of their many 'extras' but at the end of the day as good decision.
My son flew Ryanair last summer and his whole party were seated all over the plane. Most on board concurred the boarding process had been like a rugby scrum n(

What did you expect?

slinky09 wrote:

Hev60 wrote:"And both Easyjet and Ryanair are trialling seat allocation...."
I assume that is one of their many 'extras' but at the end of the day as good decision.
My son flew Ryanair last summer and his whole party were seated all over the plane. Most on board concurred the boarding process had been like a rugby scrum n(

What did you expect?

And I have this joy to look forward to on Friday (sleazyjet to AGP). Actually Mr DL would be rather pleased to be sat nowhere near me LOL...