Boss Raptor
*****
The answer...seats allocated on first come first served basis at the check-in, if like myself the passenger wants a window or aisle seat then they should arrive early at opening of check-in...it is when passengers do make this effort and discover all the good seats have gone the problem escalates!
*****
This will not help much either for long haul transfers!
BA flights from Bombay for eg leave around 2130 the previous night GMT (and check in 4 hours earlier) and a lot of pax are for the early morning departures to US points the next day at Heathrow! Even if the pax cannot pre book, I do not think they would like to be allocated seates at the gate at LHR as this will only create un necessary delays and certain missed connections if flights are running late (or sitting in the tarmac at Heathrow waiting for a gate!).As a result many of the good seats will be taken even as early as the day before due to through check in.
Overall, I feel that pre allocating a certain amount of seats (and BAs system is very fair in that respect in that as Bealine mentions the really low yield pax are not alowed to block the seats) will help in people booking early to have a reasonable choice of seats.
I guess for BA, the worst hit will be the transatlantic and to a limited extent the intra european flights with regard to through check in pax getting the best seats , but the only alternative to that is pre book (and with seat maps for BA avaialble at all the CRS systems with the agents, it is not that difficult either!)