How full are these flights?

[GoEDI]

Can someone tell me roughly how full these 2 flights are?
Does anybody know?
Would I be right in saying that the first could have 12 people booked on it, and the second is slightly more than half full? Both flights are on a Q400.

1- W6 Y6 B6 T6 S6 V6 H6 K6 M6 L0 I0 Z6

2- W6 Y6 B6 T6 S6 V0 H0 K0 M0 L0 I0 Z0


Apologies if this is the wrong forum, but there's so many! :O

[TwinAisle]

The answer in simple terms is - god knows. I guess you have culled this line out of one of the booking systems at whichever airline sells this flight. Booking systems tend not to display how many have been sold, but how many are left available in each fare class. Sometimes, the number of available seats is capped - ie, if there are more than x seats left in that class, the system shows simply x. Alternatively. the airline may have allocated its seats amongst the fare classes very evenly - given the "W6 Y6 B6 T6 S6 V6 H6 K6 M6 L0 I0 Z6".

It looks from this as though 12 seats MAY have sold. However, the nesting rules may mean that only 6 have been (if L class is higher than I, and Z is embargoed). Alternatively, L and I may not be offered on this flight at all (in which case, zero sold); as I said, god knows....

TA

[GoEDI]

The airline is Flybe, and the flight can't be empty because I am booked on it! :ok: The numbers don't seem to go higher than 6 at all. When I first checked before I booked they were all at 6, so I presume that means all fare classes are available.
If it indicates how many seats are available in each fare class that means 0 in L and I and 6 or more in all the others? :confused:
Who knows?! ;) Hopefully somebody on this forum!

[Cyrano]

You can't tell too much from this.

You need to know:
- how the classes are nested;
- whether some of the fares (e.g. L and I, or Z) are special fares which are not normally available
- what the airline's normal yield management practice is...

The number "6" probably just means "6 or more". You'll often see 4 or 9 instead. (Another possibility as TwinAisle mentions is that the classes are not nested at all - 12 x 6 = 72, close to a Q400's capacity.)

The one halfway useful idea you can get of how full the flights are is by looking at the lowest booking class with seats available, knowing that it's the lowest classes which will fill up first. The displays of the sort you show will typically show classes from highest to lowest (with some exceptions), so Z is probably the lowest.

If the classes are nested, I would guess the first flight has very few bookings, as the lower classes are still open (it might have 12 people booked, or the L and I classes might just not be available on that flight). The second flight could have as few as 6 seats left - it's really hard to tell without knowing how flyBE nest their booking classes.

[WHBM]

These are fare classes, not really connected with seat classes inside the aircraft. I think Flybe are now all one-class cabin anyway. And all that number is saying is how many seats you could book in each fare class at the moment.

Even on a 747 the maximum number that can be reached is 9. Flybe having smaller aircraft have obviously decided to work with a lesser number. And some fare classes of course are not offered on all flights. You can't tell by a 0 if a class is all sold or just not being marketed on the flight (in some cases not at the moment but it can change).

You just get a feel for it. If you've noticed that Flybe never go above 6, and there are lots of 6s here, I would say there's tons of availability on the flight. As it gets close to being full the cheaper fares may become more limited in number, eventually going to zero, but the more expensive fares may still stay at 6. If the whole lot are 0, then the flight is full !

[TwinAisle]

A quick tutorial in nesting....

Consider an aircraft with ten seats. 2 are held back for frequent flyer redemptions (call them Z class), then 2 are promotional cheapies (say P class), 3 are Economy Restricted (S class) and the rest are full fare Economy (Y class).

Assuming these guys serial nest, before any seats are sold the availability will be

Y10 S7 P2 Z2

If you want to buy the cheapest seat, this to you will be P - Z is reserved for frequent flyers. If you go and buy 2, the availability will change to

Y8 S5 P0 Z2

If instead of 2, you want 3 - well, tough. The system will sell you 3 S class seats, and will cancel out the P class altogether to maintain the inventory. So:

Y7 S4 P0 Z2.

You see the way it handles Z class? It would allow someone to buy them as a last resort when they want full fare, but until then - depending on airline policy - they are blocked.

In your case, it may be that the seats are capped to display only a predefined maximum - as Cyrano stated. In my example, if Air TwinAisle caps at 2, the empty aircraft would be

Y2 S2 P2 Z2

So you have no idea how big the plane is.

When you have bought your three, it stands at

Y2 S2 P0 Z2

Again - no idea of what has sold from this.

As I said, the booking system is designed to show availability of seats for sale, not what has sold - that is a different part of the system.

Hope this helps

TA

[BahrainLad]

I'd probably argue that there is at least 1 seat available on the aircraft.......!

(But then again that may be the jump.)

[EastMids]

Nope, the only safe thing to say is that there are at least six seats still available for sale - there could be more if the classes are not nested, but as we don't know that we can't be sure.

Herein another can of worms... There are at least six seats available for sale, but if FlyBe overbook, six for sale doesn't necessarily mean six seats still free on the aeroplane! :eek: They may for example sell a 72 seat aircraft to 78, meaning that all "real" seats are sold but they will still take money from six more punters in the assumption that some won't actually turn up for the flight!

Andy

[GoEDI]

Well I'm back- and made it despite the ATC delays! ;) - and just to let you all know, that the outbound flight didn't have 12 people on it! :p It had about 30-35
The inbound flight was about 50% maybe a bit more full.