Help would be appreciated. Thank you.
Does anybody know of a way to find out how many seats are available on a given (Swiss) flight on a given day?
Go to the Swiss website and try to search for flights for a large group (their online booking engine supports groups of up to 40 adults) on your specified date. If there isn't room, try a smaller group, and so on.
Airlines overbook flights, so that won't give you an accurate answer.
Sure, but they also continue to sell seats until the last possible minute - so unless you check moments before getting on the plane, no answer is going to be accurate.
And it'll give you a relative idea, "this date has twentyish more seats free than that date", which is what I assume the OP is looking for.
I would have thought that seat availabilty for future flights would be commercially sensitive information. I wouldn't expect that much accuracy to be freely available.
If you search for flights on an airfare aggregator such as kayak.com or skyscanner.com (or dot ch) and limit the choice of airlines to just SWISS, the website will show the number of seats available at the given price point. If you expand your selection criteria to include all fares, you'll get the total number of seats available -- but usually, when there are many seats left, the number will be expressed as "9+" or similar.
Insider knowledge or http://www.expertflyer.com .
that is very strategic information. you wouldn't know unless you work at Swiss
An update on my original request:
I also put the question to some colleagues in the airline business.
Here is what I found:
There is a website ( here ) that provides interesting information. If the data can be trusted, it’s a very useful tool. Frankly, I don't understand how they do it. If somebody knows, please share!
I also got the following answer:
One of the best we use is Non-Rev Loads group in Facebook. Ask for loads by providing the Flight number, date, and city pairs. Of course, this requires being on Facebook.
This requires that you join what’s called a ‘closed group’. Since I am not on Facebook, I asked a friend who is if he would be willing to do it for me. He tried, but never got a response to his request to join. It would be nice if it worked, but it would depend on the kindness of strangers, i.e. people who work at an airline, have access to the data, and are willing to share it.
Why do you need to know?
Because I am flying space available, and I would like to know what my odds are.
So you are PAD... myid gives a good idea.
Are you flying non-rev? If you are then the person who gave you the ticket should have access to 'the system' and be able to see how many seat there are, if and how many other non-revs are booked on the flight and what place you are in line.
But anyway, the airlines should be able to tell you your chances of getting on the flight. Have you called them?
Yes, I am flying non-rev. I get my own ID90 tickets, so nobody is giving them to me.
The airline may give me that information. They are usually reluctant to do so.
Any chance of a glossary for this thread?
Even this non-jargon made no sense.
Surely, there's no money in flying just space?
Good point!
Here is what I can contribute:
Space available: You get on the plane if there is an empty seat; some airlines call it “subject to load”.
Non-rev (non-revenue): same as space available.
ID90: Industry discount, 90%.
In American terms, it's also known as flying standby. A friend of mine gets similar tickets and always has to fly standby, so he never knows for sure which flight he'll take or how long a layover might be.
That's strange. How do you book them? Can't you see when you book them the load is? Everyone I know who flies non-rev has a log in where they can see which flights are OK or not. And/or they have a phone number to call to check.
Is this the first time you fly on this kind of ticket?
I have access to the load factor for the airline I am employed by. If I want to fly with another airline, the information is not available to me.