Originally Posted by
C2H5OH
Excellent modelling, well done!
That gives a pretty robust upper threshold of that probability.
In my experience pax are sometimes moved around by (sympathetic and motivated) FAs, if they know there is some inconvenience with seats, the least of which is being kitty-cornered to the loo.
Also as
ST Dog pointed out in post #1108 “
In both cases the wording is vague. No one assigned could mean the actual manifest shows the seats empty, not that no one had a tickets for those seats” . If the missed connection explanation was correct then surely Alaska would have been quite clear and upfront about it. If, for example, the seats were intentionally not allocated - possibly because of previous complaints of high noise then corporate vagueness wouldn’t be surprising.