I was reading a Oman Air flight review and one of the bits intrigued me:
I had earlier used ExpertFlyer to monitor both how busy the flight would be and the seat map. I selected a window seat when I checked in and noticed there were plenty of empty seats around me. On the day of the flight, I noticed the two seats next to me were showing as blocked, which I assumed was part of a weight and balance exercise.
This review is for a wide body aircraft (Boeing 787 Dreamliner) and I am just wondering if Dispatchers ever block seats for weight and balance like the review writer refers to.
I mean I have often seen large blocks of seats not available for selection sometimes in the online interface but I always assumed this was for commercial reasons and not technical. In smaller flights I have seen passengers being moved around for weight and balance but is this also done in the large wide body aircraft?
Does anyone know?