Qantas New Check In Seating Allocation
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I don't see a no status LOL getting 4C as an issue.
Maybe a high status PAX on a flex fare jumped to an earlier flight on half an hours notice; leaving 4C available as one of the few remaining seats for LOL to get when checking in at T-31 minutes.
Note the earlier posts on how this is supposed to work ...
Not a big deal but when you see people seated in front of you holding a boarding with no status then it becomes a little confusing. And I was allocated row 45F on a 767 last month....
I've had some rediculous seating allocations recently AKL-SYD and SYD-AKL obviously on a 767.
Common for me to get >40 now. Its only a recent development...maybe last couple of months. Before that I was 24/25 EVERY time without fail.
I go to checkmytrip.com and see what seating is available and there are always some up closer so I just make a quick phone call.
No different for tomorrow's flight. Allocated 7D with almost every aisle seat down to row 29 available. Did the smart thing and grabbed 4A, yes window seat but row 4, as almost every forward window seat is available.
I am trying hard to analyse the new check-in system and without any specifications I think I may have an explanation.
On todays flight there are only 7 aisle seats allocated at the front of economy. There is 4CD, 5CD, 6CD and 7D, the one I was originally allocated. The rest of the aisle seats, apart from 18D and 29D which I think are OLCI or rear aisle preference, are all vacant.
So it would appear that on my flight there are only 7 passengers with any status and have a forward aisle preference and they have been allocated the first 7 aisle seats in economy. As a Platinum I have the last of these aisle seat allocations which makes me think that there could not be another 6 Platinums in front of me and then no-one else with any status behind me, either Gold, Silver, QC or Bronze. So what is happening? I think seat allocations are done on cost of airfare first and then any status.
Not a big deal but it would explain some of the strange seat allocations recently and I do travel on the cheapest red e-deals. Any thoughts on my analysis?
It's a new system and is bound to have glitches - I noticed the techos were all over the J Lounge desk in MEL on Friday afternoon - but for me the hardest thing is remembering to OLCI at T-23:59 having learned not to with the previous system. I'm constantly OLCIing 2-3 hours later and finding Seq# 30+ and a lot of good seats gone.
I do find, however, it is still worth checking back from time to time as people jump flights and seats open up in better locations.
Also noticed a new message when using OLCI: "Flight within 24 hours so cannot be changed" (or words to that effect). A bit odd considering the kiosks ask if you want to change!
Alright before this speculation gets out of hand (and believe me, this article is way off base with its story!!!), let me explain this concept.
With Qantas' switch of reservation system, there are alot of behind the scenes changes that have taken place. One of these new concepts is called 'Theoretical Seats,' and believe me when I say that it is an excellent idea in theory, but it will take some time to iron out the issues Qantas is currently going through. Basically, Qantas has setup a list order (call it a value) of each pax for each and every flight (as well as values for individual seats on an aircraft). The ranking order takes into account FF status, PNR associations, SSRs, booking class, etc.
So, behind the scene before a pax even shows up to check-in, the system has allocated 'theoretical seats' for EVERY pax on that flight, depending the ranking order. What this means is that a pax with a high ranking order will have access to almost every seat available on the flight. A pax with a low ranking order will ONLY SEE SEATS THAT HAVE NOT BEEN BLOCKED BY THE 'THEORETICAL SEATS' FOR HIGHER RANKING PAX. Generally, if a flight is booked full (oversold), a low-ranking pax will see maybe 1 or 2 seats, or none at all available to them.
What this concept tries to do, is give pax with FF status, higher fare tickets, etc. better seats on an aircraft when pre-assignment is out of the question (QF doesn't pre-assign domestic seats, same for intra-Europe flights and Eurpoean carriers). Now, the issues that QF has had with this function relate to the way in which it had set up the ranking of pax. Families were checking in for flights and being spread out throughout an aircraft, and FF bookings (for status pax) were showing up at the bottom of the ranking order. QF has since fixed a lot of these issues internally, and regarding the article in question, THIS HAD ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH BUMPING PAX. ZERO, ZILCH, NADA. I'm not sure where that idea came from.
Now, the most difficult as you can imagine, is a check-in agent trying to explain this to pax as they are checking in bright and early for a flight, and not being allowed to access an open seat. It's a very complex situation, and not an easy one to explain.
So, hopefully that sheds some light onto the issue, but I would definitely take the article with a grain of salt, because there is very little valuable substance to it.
This article is quite similar to an explanation I had from a friendly lady in QF the week before last. She emphasized that the new system looks at every passenger and their perceived value to Qantas. In addition to what the article mentioned she did include dollar spend and frequency of travel as important subgroups within each of the status levels.
ie all WP's are ranked higher than SG's etc but those WP's who fly and spend more are ranked higher than those who fly and spend less and so on etc.
She did offer the information freely but was very cautious to ensure that I understood the distinctions being drawn.
Used OLCI for the first time on Saturday. Allocated seats online, no problems. Got to the airport and tried to print boarding passes and it spat out a generic error message and gave me a ticket for the Service Desk queue. Staff member said nothing seemed to be wrong with it, and printed out my boarding pass and I was off. Same thing happened on the return trip. Staff member this time said any kind of itinerary change in the history of a booking will trip up the OCLI system. I don't know if he knew what he was talking about but it made sense in my case as I had moved the outbound leg to a later flight. The fact that they have dedicated queues for this purpose might say something too.
Also, during the seat allocation I found it interesting that I assigned a seat for the Mrs and then went immediately back into the seat allocation page and better seats were available to her (even though she was SEQ 1) and I was able to move her to one of those. Ohh well, who knows.
On a good note, on the outbound flight (where I was ticketed J and she Y) an On Departure Upgrade was a cinch, and during the return flight (same ticketing) an Adelaide QP desk lady worked until the last possible moment (while passengers were well and truly boarding) to get the Mrs the only remaining J seat which was apparently sold but a no-show. The computer hadn't changed the status of the seat to make it available for an ODU so she called the service centre to have it done. She was also able to allocate her the seat next to me which I guess means the single traveler who was previously in that seat had their boarding pass swapped at the gate for a different J seat(?). Service above and beyond.
Last edited by WTL; 27th October 2008 at 08:54 AM.
Nice article but still does not go even part of the way to explaining some of the situations i have encountered over the past couple of months. I think the system has not being configured correctly and is producing erroneoous seat allocations. Either that or the status of the passenger is not high on the priority list of automatic seat allocation for domestic flights.
I am still puzzled that for yesterdays flight there were 9 aisle seats pre-allocated when I did OLCI the night before. I had sequence #9. If QF silver, QC, Gold, Platinum and CL get seats pre-allocated then at best there was 9 status passengers with some sort of aisle preference. So me as Platinum got pre-allocated 7D which was the 7th ranked forward aisle preference for that flight.
OK, so row 7 is not so bad and I am on a cheap ticket but I am also Platinum and should have a higher ranking than a Silver who paid $20 more for their seat. But according to the new check in system they will get preference over a Platinum. This could end up being a mistake for Qantas along with their implementation of select your seat sometime next year....
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