Club Europe flight configuration

[SteveJ]

One of the useful things for BA and their Club Europe offering is that they can easily flex the number of rows assigned to Club Europe by moving the divider between Club and Traveller.

How soon before a flight do BA do this? Am
trying to choose seats in MMB for an already purchased flight and 7 days out they are only showing 4 CE rows, all fully occupied and unavailable.

When do BA finalise the layout and therefore make the other rows available for seat selection?

[aso40]

The curtain can move up to the day of the flight.

In this case it might also be that row one is not yet reserved, but is only bookable by gold card holders until online check-in.

[SteveJ]

Cheers. Rows 1-4 (not just row 1) are all showing full. We have 4 CE seats so they’ll definitely need to be moving that curtain back!

Just not sure when they’ll get around to doing it so I can nab the seats.

[dougzz99]

SteveJ wrote:

Cheers. Rows 1-4 (not just row 1) are all showing full. We have 4 CE seats so they’ll definitely need to be moving that curtain back!

Just not sure when they’ll get around to doing it so I can nab the seats.

Full or not bookable by you? What flight is it?

[PaulB]

Steve, if you’re not aware BA will reserve row 1 for Gold exec club members. That can mean it’s not available as bookable to you (indistinguishable from booked by another passenger in BA’s app) but will become bookable by anyone (if it’s still vacant) at check-in time. You can see if it’s blocked rather than taken using online tools such as ExpertFlyer. So it could be that they don’t need to move the curtain, and there’s still room for all (or of course they could expand the cabin, as you say).

[SteveJ]

I just see the X on the seat, so assume already reserved by someone else, but could just be being held. It’s 2×2 seating so that 8 seats all showing as blocked/held/taken.

I’m just not sure how soon pre flight they will decide where the curtain will sit and then make the rest of the seats available for selection. I’ll just keep checking each day and report back!

[Lyn]

Sometimes I’ve seen the position of the first row available to choose in economy change about 72 hours before the flight.

I don’t know, however, if this coincided with a change in the actual number of CE rows or just in them releasing rows of seats held vacant in case they were needed for CE.

[SteveJ]

Lyn wrote:

Sometimes I’ve seen the position of the first row available to choose in economy change about 72 hours before the flight.

I don’t know, however, if this coincided with a change in the actual number of CE rows or just in them releasing rows of seats held vacant in case they were needed for CE.

Useful time stamp to keep in mind, thank you!

[GaryE]

SteveJ wrote:

Lyn wrote:

Sometimes I’ve seen the position of the first row available to choose in economy change about 72 hours before the flight.

I don’t know, however, if this coincided with a change in the actual number of CE rows or just in them releasing rows of seats held vacant in case they were needed for CE.

Useful time stamp to keep in mind, thank you!

This happened to us in May on our flight back from TFS to LHR. Had two seats booked in CE and no availability showing. Emailed the duty manager as we were in Tenerife at the time and he stated that there would plenty of seats available in CE but they had not yet been released and he could not assign us 2 seats as was under the control of the operational team. Anyhow about 72 hours out, as mentioned above, a number of seats became available and in fairness BA allocated us two seats together before I went into MMB. It will be fine but I know how you are feeling as I thought they were going to downgrade us.

[dougzz99]

The first row is blocked for golds, as are seats next to golds. You need a service like Expert Flyer to determine what is booked and what is blocked.

[heinztein]

This has happened to me on several CityFlyer flights over the past few months. They can (and do) reconfigure the cabin right up until boarding if they want.

If they don’t do the reconfiguration by t-24 hours before departure then you won’t be able to check in using the app and will need to check in at the airport. In that scenario my experience has been that they will try to get you to accept a downgrade but will ultimately reconfigure the cabin for you, resulting in a dozen or so other pax getting their seats reassigned when at the gate. If you’re flying from somewhere other than LCY then you’ll have a long wait at the check in desk whilst the agent phones BA to try to make all of this happen (an hour at least, in my experience, and this takes one of the check in operators out of the game for that hour and so it will delay everyone else checking in).

As others have said, though, they could well do the reconfig c. 72 hours out in which case all is good!

[SteveJ]

Update for everyone. Approx 73 hours pre departure (that’s when I checked) the whole front row (reserved for Golds) opened up for seat selection for me (Silver).

Yet to see if they need to shift the curtain back. I have two more tickets booked for Blue passengers on a separate booking, will need to wait til 24 hrs before to see if they move the curtain or if they end up in the other two seats in row 1.