Virgin Atlantic changes to seat reservation booking from November 2012

**Wendy** · 21-01-2012, 12:48 PM

We are making some improvements to our seat assignment process. In order to minimise the impact of these changes on our passengers, we need to restrict the number of seats allocated within the system, throughout the period of development. From 9th January 2012 we will only be able to offer advanced seat selection for flights departing before 01 November 2012. This policy applies in every cabin. We will add any updates on progress to our website and when the system changes have been completed, we will once again open up seat assignment to 336 days before each flight.

Please don’t forget that all seats, on every flight will be available to select when check-in opens (this is at -24 hours for mobile and on-line check in). In exceptional circumstances some seat allocations may be moved due to operational requirements.

To find out more on how this might affect you, read these associated FAQs

Source: Virgin Atlantic Website

**Keith** · 21-01-2012, 02:13 PM

hmmm I dont fancy booking a flight for December without being able to book the seats pretty far in advance :/

I'd assume it won't take them all year to upgrade and reservations will become available before dec but hmmm!

As it is, couple's don't get great treatment and routinely get moved if there's a family who want to sit together.

**Isafari** · 21-01-2012, 02:56 PM

Originally Posted by Keith

As it is, couple's don't get great treatment and routinely get moved if there's a family who want to sit together.

As a couple we actually got moved from a set of two seats to a set of four - go figure!

**Keith** · 21-01-2012, 03:17 PM

Originally Posted by Isafari

As a couple we actually got moved from a set of two seats to a set of four - go figure!

not at all surprised! if there was a family who had the two seats in front of your reserved seats say and they had two young kids for example. They wanted to sit together but wanted a window, in my experience the airline will happily move the couple into whatever other seats are available rather than trying to convince the family to sit together in the four.

I've actually seen this happen a few times right in front of me and once when we had our seats changed I went to ask the people sitting in ours who said they'd only been able to reserve seats spread out and when they got to the airport the airline were looking for groups of 1 or 2 people they could move to fit in the larger groups.

So yeah sadly, doesn't surprise me in the least.