sjbisanz1

BjorkChop is completely correct in his explanation. Also, Patrick, BA did not lie to you (in this case) regarding an inter-Europe seat assignment. They do not pre-assign seats on those flights (at least to those of us on this side of the pond!). Nor are they the only ones. I have yet to find the European carrier that does pre-assign inter-Europe flights (meaning from one European city to another). And as a rule, many airlines hold back their best seats or a large portion of them for their most frequent flyers. For example; Delta will have 40 rows on a plane, and 35 of those are held for their Medallion travelers. If you are not Medallion and those last 5 rows have already been pre-assigned, you will have to either keep calling and hope that a seat opens up, or get your seat assignment at the airport. But you do have a better shot at seats booking further out; as a rule. Sorry your having difficulty!

elaine

Hi
thanks all for the insights and experiences. I've flown BA once or twice in the past and don't recall having this problem, but it's been 4-5 years since the last time. The weird part is having the return seat assigned (I hope!), but not the outgoing.
Looks like I'm going to have a lot of time to kill at the airport.

Elainee

Elaine (I do like that name),
Now you can check-in via e-mail 24 hours in advance and select your seat then. I know this works from London to US and according to the BA website you can do it from the US to London. Since we are both going the end of this month, we will see if this works. I sure hope so because that long check-in line is a pain. I hope you are taking the morning flight..we are not this time and I am sorry. I hate overnight flying if there are other choices.

seafox

to add to the insightful knowledge. All airlines hold back a certan number of seats and they will overbook by a predetermined amount - can be 16 to 26%. So, the reality is if they will not give you a seat assignment the flight MAY be over booked. Personally I will never buy tickets with out an assigned seat. Friends of mine tell me show up early and you'll get one of the held back seats....I don't like that game. I will tell you though, having a seat assignment is not always a gaurantee of that seat....Last year Air France tried to re-assign our seats and make us wait an extra day...I found that yelling and using the word "Terrible" in french to be productive...we suddenly had seats on our planned flight.

Patrick

The guy from BA never said "there is no preseating to people in the US, but there is preseating to Europeans". He simply said "there are no preseat assignments on those flights." The man next to me said he booked his seat when he made the reservation -- months before. Maybe you don't call that telling a lie, but I do. No preseat assignments on those flights means just that. If he meant they don't give them out to Americans but they do to other people he should have said so.

cheuvront

My family of 3 will be flying BA in May. We got seat assignments at the time of booking. I did use a travel agent because I was also booking a Globus tour at the same time. We have seat assignments on the return also.

MarciaS

I believe that British Air does not believe that they have to honor any seat assignments they give. I booked with them 11 months in advance - checked several times before leaving about seat assignments. Actually got two aisles across which were our preferences on the outbound flight, but not the row that we were assigned. However, on the flight back, that I had reconfirmed 5 days before the flight,we ended up with an aisle and middle seat in the middle section. When I complained as this was a 10 hour flight, I was told I should be glad to have a seat as they had to break up families. There were no families near us. British Air only cares about filling up seats, not getting return customers because if at all possible I will never fly them again.

tallyhotravels

I am constantly amazed when I read travel posts with constant complaints against BA and AF as well. Or else I must be the luckiest international traveler around and didn't know how good I had it. And to boot, I have never booked a flight more than 45 days in advance. In fact, my last flight with AF, I purchased the tickets on a Thursday and flew out on Monday. All flights in economy, most purchased thru consolidators (hence no 7 day advance purchase rules, etc). I have yet to have a rude flight attendant, and in fact, some have been extremely helpful.

Last Thanksgiving I flew BA and upon boarding, my son and I were seated next to someone with such a foul odor, I knew we could not endure it. I went to the front flight attendant and in a nice way, told her the problem. Even though the flight appeared to be full, she asked a couple of solo passengers if they would swap, using the excuse that I needed to be seated with my son who was a first time flyer (this was not the case - she lied - as some of you have stated is a specialty of BA). Best flight I've ever had! Her manuvering left an empty seat between us - I've never had that luxury on an international flight.

Maybe I better stop while I'm ahead? LOL

KathrynT

Well, we had managed to have pre-assigned seats for a flight booked many months ahead. However, when we checked in. BA said our seats had not been pre-assigned and changed our seating. This was after I had re-confirmed our pre-assigned seats a few weeks before! Since this was the Monday after the Heathrow strike last summer, I wasn't about to argue as we were far lucker than those poor folks stranded all weekend but I would never trust what BA says about confirmed seats again.

BTilke

I flew BA to Chicago and back last week and had no problem getting an assigned seat two weeks before the flight. However, I flew Premium Economy (World Traveler Plus) rather than regular economy, so the rules might be different. My seat also was booked by a travel agent rather than online.
Bill, I flew out of Heathrow on November 28 and it was chaos, but seemed to be routine chaos. I got in line about two hours ahead of my flight and by the time I was finally checked in, it was last call for my flight! I had to race to the gate, no time for duty free. The arrival back at Heathrow on December 9 was easy as pie in comparison. FYI, on my flight to Heathrow, first, biz and premium economy were pretty empty, but regular economy was jammed solid.

RufusTFirefly

All airlines have seat assignment blackout periods.

Sue_xx_yy

Elainee, I believe it is only Executive club members who can use on-line check-in 24 hours in advance, hoi polloi such as myself can only do so 12 hours in advance. I don't know why they call it on-line 'check in' when it really only allows seat selection; one still has to go to the airport to pick up boarding passes and check any bags, as per usual. I'll be interested to hear though how you made out with this service, because I'm traveling about three weeks after you.

My experience with intra-European flights (intra, of course, meaning 'within') is that of sjbisanz1, at best you can select seats only 12-24 hours in advance with BA.

In fairness I think that many airlines often override initial seat selections. I've had my seat assignment changed at the desk by airlines other than BA, but so long as the type of seat I requested (i.e. window/aisle) is honoured and I'm seated with my spouse I'm not upset. I'm only speculating, of course, but some reasons why airlines might do this: they have to be sure passengers are more or less equally distributed in the plane on less than full flights, for reasons of weight balance; and/or the agent has to correct 'movie theatre' syndrome, in which the remaining empty seats are so distributed as to be inefficient (a seat here, a seat there, instead of, for example, 2 seats together).

Keith

Tallyho, the two solo flyers who would have had any empty seat between them, but instead were put with the person with the terrible odor, may have a different opinion of BA

Keith

tallyhotravels

Keith - maybe the two solo passengers had an odor as well and didn't notice the odor of their new seatmate (I'd do a smiley face here, but I don't know how to add emoticons). But I guess they had the option of refusing the offer of moving if having a seat between them was more desirable. Or maybe since it was early on, they didn't know there would only be 2 of them on their row, thinking perhaps the third passenger hadn't boarded yet.

At any rate, on this odor thing, maybe I should start a new discussion. That flight was the second time I had been seated next to a Mr Stinky. Actually, the first time was next to Miss Stinky. Unless you are a stinker or in some way accustomed to stinkers, how on earth do you survive 8 to 10 hours in cramped economy like this?

Betsy

Here's the URL for the smileys, TallyHo. Save them as a favorite or bookmark and they'll be at your fingertips as needed.

http://www.fodors.com/forums/smileys/

tallyhotravels

Thanks Betsy! Now that I've started posting here rather regularly, I find I am needing emoticons!

circa

Elaine:
Sorry...I did not read thru all the posting here.

However, I did read a real good discussion on this a couple months ago.

Thought I would pass it on to you...an interesting read.

It is under the topic AIRLINES,
subject: "US Airways Seatting Assignments - HELP?"...poster was babyblue78...last date 9-06-03.

Specifically read the postings by
AAFrequent Flyer....very knowlegable on the subject....may answer some of your questions.

[My own opinion] Get to the ticket counter early, and to the gate. I don't think you have a problem.

enjoy London

WillTravel

Another really helpful site is
www.flyertalk.com .

itswoody

On a LHR - MAD r/t flight booked 6 months in advance, BA would not assign seats nor would they after several phone calls closer to the departure date. Seems like a bad policy to me.

RufusTFirefly

From a few different web sites:

Airline seat assignments
Why can't I always get my preferred airline seating?
Airlines hold up to 80 percent of all advanced seat assignments for airport check-in. For example, a standard 737 aircraft has approximately 110 coach class seats. If 80 percent of those seats are set aside for airport check-in, there are only 20-22 seats for pre-assignment. Of those, 7 would be aisle seats, 7 would be window seats and 7 would be center seats.

Why do airlines hold back seat assignments for airport check-in?
Airlines overbook their flights. If most people holding over-booked reservations show up for departure, the airline wants to control who gets "bumped." As an example, travelers without seat assignments who check-in late for their flight will likely get bumped when flights are over booked. As a result, it is better to have a center seat assignment than no seat assignment at all.

Book as early as possible - within three weeks of the flight . The early bird catches the worm and the early booker can snag the best seat. If you book months ahead, however, you will be too early for an assignment and have to take your chances with "gate check-in."

This means that on, say, a 140 seater 737, an airline might physically sell 200 tickets, but only have 100 seats available for pre-assignment. Half of the people with tickets will not be able to get any type of seat preassigned at all! However, on the day of the flight, only 120 people turn up, meaning that there are 20 remaining empty seats, nearly everyone gets the seat they want, and everyone at least gets a seat of some description.

There are two reasons that airlines typically withhold some of the seats from normal pre-assignment. The first is to give them flexibility at the airport, so that when people turn up and ask (demand!) to be seated together for 'good' reasons, the gate agents have the ability to work minor miracles. The second reason is so that when 'important' clients complain about not being able to get the seat they want preassigned, they can take one of the seats from their 'reserve supply' to satisfy that customer.