Might it be coming - seat selection for Etihad flights

[bullerdude]

So I used to browser back button accidently when using the online booking engine tonight (instead of the previous button on the page) and noted something peculiar.

When I went backwards to the seat selection page - the seatmap for an Etihad flight showed briefly before the 'Online seat selection not available' message showed.

I did the same thing a second time and was able capture a screenshot included below.

Does this mean that online seat selection is coming, or that the booking engine is capable of it but Virgin has chosen not to enable it???

 

[EuroKick]

I can select seats on EY flights at my work computer, but not at home through the VA site... Very weird.

 

[TomVexille]

More likely that EY don't give access to the codeshare on the VA PNR

 

[madrooster]

Given both EY and VA are both Sabre carriers, has anyone tried to get the EY record locator for seating purposes when booked on a VA codeshare operated by EY?

Sabre uses dedicated partitioning which means that EY would have a separate record locator to VA, even though both use Sabre.

This procedure works fine with AA who also uses Sabre...

 

[rtyuiop]

Yeah, tried it - in fact VA put the EY PNR on my booking record last time. Can log in and I think I booked chauffeur transfer online. Don't know about seat selection, think I did that on the phone with VA while booking.

 

[pauly7]

Given both EY and VA are both Sabre carriers, has anyone tried to get the EY record locator for seating purposes when booked on a VA codeshare operated by EY?

Sabre uses dedicated partitioning which means that EY would have a separate record locator to VA, even though both use Sabre.

This procedure works fine with AA who also uses Sabre...

Yup tried it - no dice. Rang Etihad and they did it for me over the phone. Very little seat choice avail (in j) but interestingly when I checked in online (which worked - a big improvement for Etihad), the whole cabin was open pretty much for selection. They must have strict blocking rules for their top tier FF members or something - they could teach VA a thing or two about that