Etihad allows flyers to bid to keep adjacent seats empty • Hacker News Board

Re: Etihad allows flyers to bid to keep adjacent seats empty

#111

Post by pc86 » Tue, Jun 27, 2017, 10:59 AM UTC

porpoisemonkey wrote: post #49

obastani wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this situation, wouldn't the person sitting in the middle be willing to trade for either the aisle or the window seat?

I think the point of the parent comment is that the strategy of capturing the two end seats of a three-person row displaces noncoupled passengers across more rows which has the potential to make finding coupled seats less likely for other fliers.

Yes I didn't do a great job explaining it but this is what I meant. You end up with a lot of couple + single filled rows and couple + empty seat rows. If you selected the seats you wanted instead of trying to game everyone else on what is probably a full or nearly-full flight anyway, there would be more rows filled with 3x single passengers.

Re: Etihad allows flyers to bid to keep adjacent seats empty

#112

Post by Urbanxassassin » Tue, Jun 27, 2017, 1:47 PM UTC

tuna-piano wrote: post #9

My two tips for how to keep the adjacent seat empty on normal flights: 1. If you book when there are still many empty seats, choose a window/aisle seat near the back of the plane. Those middle seats are usually the last to be filled. 2. If you're traveling in a group of 2 and there are 3 seats per section, choose the window and aisle of an empty section (preferably near the back of the plane). Chances are good that i…

This is all well and good, but standbys usually fill any seats that are left.

Re: Etihad allows flyers to bid to keep adjacent seats empty

#113

Post by dTal » Tue, Jun 27, 2017, 2:46 PM UTC

robotresearcher wrote: post #98

kzrdude wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. At the bottom of it, it's subsidized by the relative inexpense of oil, and how much we can do with that energy. Which reminds me: Is there a name for and can I read more about the problem of economy, market and pricing of resources for sustainability?

> Sure. No. The seats are not being made empty. You're just moving the empty seat next to you. Zero energy impact, save for moving the information around.

Hmm, I dunno... it relieves some of the financial pressure of having empty seats, by extracting some value from them. Therefore there will be less incentive for the airline to maximize seat utilization (through overbooking, for example, which saves money but costs reputation for the airline every time someone gets booted). Therefore we can expect seat utilization to go down.

Re: Etihad allows flyers to bid to keep adjacent seats empty

#114

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jun 27, 2017, 3:11 PM UTC

iak8god wrote: post #104

ryanmarsh wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The staff didn't. They took it upon themselves to move. They asked the staff if it was ok and the staff said yes but didn't help reseat them. I love how downvoted I'm getting in this thread. LOL

"If I would have refused the flight attendants probably wouldn't have pushed the issue. Usually they won't." As I didn't vote on your comment I can't say for sure, but probably people are downvoting you because your own statements make it sound like you're bullying busy airline staff into getting what you want even though it's not owed to you.

[deleted]

Re: Etihad allows flyers to bid to keep adjacent seats empty

#115

Post by robotresearcher » Tue, Jun 27, 2017, 4:50 PM UTC

dTal wrote: post #113

robotresearcher wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sure. No. The seats are not being made empty. You're just moving the empty seat next to you. Zero energy impact, save for moving the information around.

Hmm, I dunno... it relieves some of the financial pressure of having empty seats, by extracting some value from them. Therefore there will be less incentive for the airline to maximize seat utilization (through overbooking, for example, which saves money but costs reputation for the airline every time someone gets booted). Therefore we can expect seat utilization to go down.

That's true. That's a pretty complex effect, so you'd need some decent data to estimate its magnitude. But you're right it should be above zero, unless there's some other effect to suppress it.