cfc

There used to be a website where you could learn, more or less, how many seats remain open on a given flight, listed by fare class -- for example it might say B5 Y9 --- class B has five open seats, "tourist" Y has 9 or more still open. Does such a website still exist?

NoFlyZone

Those numbers are not the numbers of remaining open seats. They are the number of seats which are available for sale in each class.

For example if an airline uses only, say, three booking classes Y, B and M and a certain flight uses an aircraft with 100 seats, you could see something like Y8 B5 M5. That means they are willing to still sell 8 seats in the Y fare class, and 5 in each of the other two. Theoretically they could sell all 18, ending up intentionally overbooking the flight by 8.

It gets a lot more complex than that, but that's the gist. There are a few sites which have that information but unless one is familiar with how it all works, one could easily be mislead. (For example even though it says M5, you still may not be able to book even one seat in M, depending on a bunch of things.)

cfc

Thanks for clarification, but still need a website that would give me even that much information. And I am aware of all the nuances, manipulations, and quirks of such information -- was trying to shorthand it so those who might know of such websites would know what I'm looking for.

(Some people I've asked keep giving me seatguru.com and claiming it will report available/unassigned/still-for-sale seats on a specific flight -- it will not; it is helpful to show configuration and good vs. bad seats, but that's all.)

Gardyloo

http://www.expertflyer.com

Example -

AA 365
ORD 10/17/16 4:40 PM
LGA 10/17/16 7:48 PM
738
Su,M,T,W,Th,F

F5 A4 P0 Y7 B0 H7 K7 M7 L7 W7 V7 E7 G6 S6 N0 Q0 O0

cfc

That might do it, Gardyloo - thanks!