Checking Seat Capacity on Previous Flights [duplicate]

Does anyone know of ways to check the seat capacity or number of tickets sold or number of passengers onboard for past flights? I'm actually just trying to figure out how many passengers were on a specific flight, not the names of the passengers, just the number of passengers.

tickets seating

Best Answer

Unfortunately this is key competitive information and it's closely guarded by the airlines. Sorry.

If you just need a rough guess, you can look up past flights on a site like Flightradar24 and then check the capacity of the airplane in that airline's config with SeatGuru, which will give you an upper bound. Then check historical price data with Google Flights: on days/flights that are expensive, load factor will be close to 100%, while on cheaper ones it will be less (maybe 80%, rarely less these days).

However, this assumes normal flight loads. In 2020 due to COVID all bets are off and many airlines are flying with much lower load factors than usual.

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Can you find out how many passengers are on a flight?

Option #2: A few days before your flight, log in to the airline's website, provide the record locator for your ticket and try to change your seat. This will take you to a page showing all the available seats on your airline. You can count how many seats are still open to get an idea of how crowded your flight is.

Is there a way to check how full a flight is?

When in doubt, call the carrier's customer service line and an agent to check how full the flight is. It might not be the most convenient option, but it will yield an answer. If you dread the idea of waiting on hold, some airlines have also introduced new customer service chat features.

How do I find out the number of seats booked on a flight?

If you did not opt to purchase Pick-A-Seat during flight booking or via Manage My Booking or web check-in 4 hours prior to flight departure, your seat numbers will be assigned automatically when you check-in. Your seat number will be shown on the boarding pass upon completion of check-in.

Why do airlines double book seats?

The short answer to this is economics: airlines want to make sure that every flight is as full as possible to maximize their profits. The reported reason why airlines routinely oversell their seats is to recover costs the airline incurs for seat cancellations and for travelers who do not show up to take the flight.

How to Find Your Seat on an Airplane - Yep!

Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

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