Confused about airline seat availability

[maxiesmom]

I've been looking at flights to Orlando for the first week of July. Delta shows a non-stop flight out of my home airport for a decent price. However, when I click on the seat map, fewer coach seats show availability than I need to purchase. Why would they let my buy 3 coach seats if only 2 are available?

 

[BadPinkTink]

airlines always over book and I have had issues flying with Delta in July due to the flight being over booked. Airlines do this during busy times as they know a certain % of passengers are either no shows or change their flight.

Basically 2 of your seats will be gaurenteed and the third will be standby. This means that when you check in, 2 people will get a seat number and the third person will have to wait to see if a seat becomes available due to a no show.

This happened to me flying from New Orleans to LAX with Delta. There was no seat number on my boarding pass and it just said to see the gate agent. The Delta gate agent announced that the flight was overbooked and asked for volunteers to move to the next flight. I was very lucky to finally get a seat on the flight I was booked as I think I was the last person on the standby list allowed on the flight.

For this reason I will not fly with Delta again!!

 

[Jimsig]

There are a few reasons airlines do this including the one the PP mentioned. Not all airlines do overbook however. Sometimes an airline will not assign exit row seating during booking or you may happen to have a passenger who is under the age to sit in the exit row. They may also block out some seats for whatever reason. You could always call the airline before you book and ask about availability and if there are enough seats ask them if you book will you then be able to call and get a seat assignment. If you are worried about losing out on that fare book it, and then call and ask about getting seat assignments. You can always cancel and get a refund, up to 24 hours after booking I believe

 

[maxiesmom]

Ok, thanks! I don't think I will risk that flight then. Southwest has one a little later on that will work. I just thought I would grab the earlier flight if it would work, but it doesn't sound like a good choice.

 

[supersnoop]

Airlines hold back a few seats; sometimes the first and last two rows, in case families show up without assigned seats and need to sit together.

 

[Horace Horsecollar]

If you look at a seat map for a flight on a legacy carrier (United, Delta, American) when flights first become available 11 months out, you might only see 2/3 of the economy seats available available for seat assignments -- even if not a single economy seat on that flight has been sold.

Some seats are only visible to elite frequent flyers who have signed in with their frequent flyer numbers or to full refundable-fare passengers. Some seats are held back for day-of-flight control at the airports. Some seats are blocked for one reason or another, but will be released later.

Seats assignments and tickets sold are two different things.

 

[brownhaired_girl]

I think you can call Delta and ask how many seats are available. When I called once they would only state if there were more than or less than 7.

 

[DebbieB]

I've been looking at flights to Orlando for the first week of July. Delta shows a non-stop flight out of my home airport for a decent price. However, when I click on the seat map, fewer coach seats show availability than I need to purchase. Why would they let my buy 3 coach seats if only 2 are available?

They hold a lot of seats for their Preferred level flyers. Most likely there are many more actually available. They are released at 24 hours out if not booked.

 

[Jestocost]

Are the seats marked as completely unavailable or are they marked as requiring an additional charge to select?

The real issue is that in this day and age airlines make available only a very limited number of seats for "free" selection by passengers who don't have FF status and purchase discounted tickets. While overbooking does happen, it rarely results in passengers being involuntarily denied boarding. Every passenger with a confirmed ticket eventually will be assigned a seat; although it may not be together with any traveling companions or in their preferred location (aisle, window, front, back, etc.).

It stinks, but passengers without status may need to determine if they want to pay extra for preferred seating assignments and get seats together or where they want to sit, or if they want to wait for the free assignments and sort it out after that. In some cases the latter works out fine because a gate agent is able to reassign seats before boarding but there's no guarantee.

 

[maxiesmom]

I need 3 tickets and coach only shows 2 available at all.

 

[alaska8]

Are you booking thru a booking site like expedia? If yes then this is how many tickets expedia have available to sell not how many seats are available on the actual site.
If you are looking at the Delta website and it says 2 available...it is usually only 2 available to purchase at that fare bucket (flights are divided into many different fare buckets which fluctuate depending on how well they are selling) your third ticket would be at the next fare bucket.
Also if you are on the Delta website and are looking at the seating map you will only see seats that are available to be selected in that fare bucket and are not under airport/reservation hold. For example more desirable seats are held back for elite mileage plan fliers to select (my husband sees a completely different seat map to me as he is a tier status flier and I'm not) Also seats considered handicap accessible are also held back and often exit rows and bulkhead are held. Cheap ticket equals "cheap seats" towards the back. Some seats are held back from selection so as to give the gate agent something to work with on the day of the flight. Also certain airlines release seats 24 hours before the flight so you can go in and select a more desirable seat.
As far as overselling flights all airlines do this (Southwest as well) They oversell after much research into the noshow rate on that particular flight. Its rare that they have to ask for volunteers and even rarer that they have to involuntary bump passengers. I work on flights daily that are listed as an oversold status yet we go with an empty seat or two
I work for an airline and although this opinion is my own it is from 15 plus years experience