Q – We will be leaving for a European Cruise booked through Regent Seven Seas in three weeks. We booked the air/sea program and paid extra for an air deviation. We were flying United Airline on a flight from Atlanta that is actually going to be operated by Lufthansa. We have a connection in Frankfurt to Istanbul, also on Lufthansa with a United flight number on a code-share.
Yesterday, we were advised that our seats had been taken away and re-assigned. We are now seated in different rows in middle seats. We had everything confirmed in writing and are furious about this. How could it happen and what can we do about it? We are being told to wait until the day of departure when something may open up. I just don’t think that customers realize that this sort of thing can happen.
A – You’re right – flyers think a confirmed seat means it is “confirmed” when, in fact, it doesn’t. . For those booked in economy seating, this sort of thing happens with some regularity. It almost never occurs in Business or First. Here is what likely happened:
Almost all seat changes occur for one of two reasons: They may have needed the seats you were holding for elite status flyers. Or, there may have been a change of equipment, a different type of aircraft or version of the aircraft assigned to your flight. When that happens the computers take over and rather haphazardly assign open seats.
Your flight is currently on airport lockdown. That means that the flight is showing full and no airline employee can get into the seating chart to make changes until 24-hours prior to departure. Lufthansa tells us that on transatlantic flights involving the Airbus 443, which we believe is your assigned aircraft, 30% of all seats remain unassigned until the day of departure. If you try calling 24 hours, to the minute, prior to your scheduled departure you will likely be able to change your seats to two together. If that fails, get to the airport at least two and a half hours prior to departure for early check-in. We would expect that your seats would be changed at that time.
This does not strike us as a problem caused in any way by Regent. Cruise lines. But Regent should be following up with their contacts at Lufthansa to see if they can get this cleared for you prior to departure.
