V-Flyer

new to the seat availability programme.
I put in my flights for Jan 2005 LGW to MCO but it seems to me that either the flight is well on the way to being full, or is there some other reason the amount of seats available is small?

LGW MCO 1115 1540 VS 27 J4 D4 Z3 W4 S7 K4 Y7 B7 L7 M7 744
LGW MCO 1230 1655 VS 15 J4 D4 Z4 W4 S7 K4 Y7 B7 L7 M7 744

return
MCO LGW JAN/22 1800 VS J ->

MCO LGW 1805 0655 VS 28 J4 D4 Z4 W4 S7 K4 Y7 B7 L7 M7 744
MCO LGW 2040 0930 VS 16 J4 D4 Z4 W4 S7 K4 Y7 B7 L7 M7 744
MCO BOS 1300 1557 DL1470 FLIGHT CANCELLED 733
LHR 1925 0655 VS 12 J4 D4 Z4 W4 S7 K4 Y7 B7 L7 M7 343

Alan

Those flights are wide open.

7 is the default number of seats available in each class. There won't ever be a number higher than seven shown. I am not 100% sure but would guess that 4 is the default number for some of the premium classes.

See this recent thread for more info.

http://www.virginflyer.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=663

Nick

Thanks for the help on that Nottingham Nick.
I thought it was strange....

Looks wide open to me.

The maximum number of seats shown is 7 in Economy and 4 in PE or Upper (depending on the GDS you're using). Therefore, J4 means at least 4 seats available in Upper, and Y7 means at least 7 seats available in Economy.

Also, each bucket is a subset of the most expensive (full fare) bucket in that cabin. In Upper, for instance, Z is a subset of D is a subset of J. To try and make this clearer, let's say you were looking at a readout such as J4 D3 Z1. You don't add the numbers together to get the total availability, in this case it would mean there are at least 4 seats available in Upper, 4 or more of which can be had at full fare; 3 of which can be had at the D bucket price and 1 available in the Z bucket. The cheaper buckets tend to go first, but there is nothing to stop someone paying for a more expensive bucket if they want more flexibility, better mileage, or whatever there reasons. If someone were to by the 3 seats in the D bucket in the above example, the readout of Upper is likely to change to J? D0 Z0 (I'll come back to that ? in a moment...) because the 3 seats that could be bought in D included the Z buckets too. Hope this is making some kind of sense.

Right, back to that ? in the J bucket. When someone bought those 3 seats in D, it would have reduced the total availability of seats in the J bucket too, but because J was at J4, you don't have any sure way of knowing how much supply is behind that at full fare.

Also, note that reservations are being changed and/or cancelled every minute, so looking at the availability only give you an indication of how busy the flight is at that moment. It also important to realise that this is 'availability', not 'physical seats'. You probably already realise that every airline oversell their seats because of no-shows and last minute cancellations. In fact they have a complex set of calculations that help them predict just how many people will not appear for a particular flight. They then oversell seats based on this calculation, and the availability is showing you what you can buy; not how many seats are left. A subtle difference, but worth remembering.

Because cheaper buckets sell out first, watching the availability from the right hand side is a good indication of whether the flight is busy. In your examples, there's M7 (maxed out) on all of them - so absolutely wide open.

However, this is for a flight in January next year - so way too early to predict whether the flight will be full. Good time to be picking up the bargain buckets though...

Hope that made some sense!

Pix

A great explanation of the codes, thanks!

On a similar subject - with the "bucket check tool" ever re-appear on virginflyer?

jules.

Thanks guys, now makes sense
Cheers

Would be nice if they had an indicator that told you for sure if a flight was overbooked or not.

Just to throw a spanner in the works here but I've just checked my BD MAN-LHR on the 18 and it showing:

MAN LHR 0635 0740 BD 581 C5 D5 J5 Y9 O9 S9 B9 K9 M9 H9 320

I guess BD break the 4 and 7 rule [?]

Yup, there is no rule as such.

If you look at Sabre, it shows 4/7, but on Galileo it shows 7/7 for VS flights.

Different airlines also show different numbers, although 9 is normally the highest because it's a single digit after the letter code.

Pix