Question for Non-rev on 747
 

So, when I check loads on flights out of SFO on the 747 what does "held seats" mean? is that a weight restriction? Some of these flights have over 25 seats held... do they normally release those just before flight so Non-revs can get on or does the 747 leave with 25 open seats due to a weight restriction? thats my only guess is a weight restriction

Thanks!

It depends as it could be a couple different scenarios.

As you mentioned, it's possible that there could be held seats for weight restrictions that get released at the last minute. You'd probably want to mention the city pair and dates so a 747 driver can chime in.

But also----IF economy is permitted to be oversold the system will automagically hold seats in F or BF. Premium pax will get upgraded into the held seats to make room for the economy folks so you will need to look at total bookings in all 3 cabins to get a feel for the actual load. FWIW, you will also occasionally see this domestically.

I fly the Whale out of ORD and I can't remember being weight restricted on either PEK or PVG in either of the last two summers, so I would consider it extremely unlikely that any flights out of SFO would be weight restricted (that would have to be a huge amount of cargo). It is much more likely that the "held seats" are for the overbooking situation Cadetdrivr mentioned. If you look at economy and it is overbooked then the held seats are almost certainly for that reason.

If you can give specific flights one of us could look at the specifics.

As an example you can look at SFO-ICN for the next couple of days. You can see an overbooked coach cabin and seats held in business. As far as weight restrictions go, the SFO-ICN flight took off today (granted with about 50 empty seats) and weighed only 802k as compared to a MTOG of 875k. So, these held seats are obviously not for weight restrictions.