Question regarding the Chicago end of bmi flights

[fernytickles]

bmi started their MAN/Chicago flights a month after we moved here - very considerate of them, I must say ;)

I am puzzled tho' why when we check in at Chicago we are not allocated seats until we are boarding, or if we allocated seats, there's a good chance they will be changed before we board. Travelling in the other direction, from Manchester, this never happens, and I've never seen it happen on any other flight I've been on.

It seems to cause an awful lot more work for the staff, and a lot more fussing about for the passengers - especially those who request a particular seat at check in (window/aisle etc).

Does anyone have direct knowledge of why this is done?

[Curious Pax]

Similar thing when we flew Orlando-Washington-Manchester with them in Nov '02 (domestic leg was United). Check-in at Orlando couldn't allocate us seats for the transatlantic leg (seemed to be procedure rather than a glitch) which as my wife had booked separately to the rest of us (part of her trip was a work trip) was a concern as we thought that getting 5 seats together just before departure from Washington would be a problem. As it was the gate guy sorted it out no problem, but seemed a strange way of doing things in this day and age. Taking another trip on the same routing in April, so will be interesting to see what happens.

As an aside, the bmi transatlantic flights were the best I have been on (in economy). My wife flew business on the outbound leg, and reported similar. Just wish they would put the inflight film schedule on their website so I can see how the next trip will be - my young son watched the Disney films constantly for the whole flight both ways, which probably contributed significantly to the afore-mentioned sentiments!

[slim_slag]

Flew BMI earlier this week ORD-MAN, and got my BMI seats assigned at check in by United in PHX. Agree that BMI transatlantic beats the competition in their economy and premium economy products, still to try their business class but looks good.