How do I Find How Many Empty Seats Are Available on United Airlines?

Things You Will Need

• Computer

• Access to the Internet

When you are planning a trip, you might find what appears to be the perfect flight but you may not be quite ready to book it. If this happens, you may find it useful to find out how many empty seats are left on the flight. This can give you an indication of how long it is safe to wait before booking your flight; if there are only two seats left, you might consider buying right away, but if most of the plane is empty, you may have time to consider other options. Fortunately, it is fairly easy to figure out how many empty seats are left on United Airlines flights.

Enter the information for the flight you want to view in the “Book Flight” section on the left side of the page. If you are interested in the number of seats in only one of the cabins (Economy, Business or First), select that cabin in the drop-down menu. Otherwise, leave this option on Economy, the default. Click the “Search” button. This will open a page displaying all matching flights.

Select the flight you want, then click on the “View seats” tab beside the flight number for your flight. This will open a new window displaying all the occupied and available seats in the cabin you chose.

To see what seats are available in the business cabin, click on the “Modify search” button on the left side of the main screen, then change the cabin selection to "Business." Click “Search.” This will open another page with a list of flights. Find your selected flight again, and click “View seats” again. Here you can view available and occupied seats in the Business cabin. Count the available seats here. Also notice the row numbers; some planes in the Business cabin and the First cabin are identical.

Click on the “Modify search” button again and change the cabin from Business to First, then click “Search.” Find your relevant flight again, and click “View seats” one last time to see the available and occupied seats in the First cabin. Check whether the row numbers match the row numbers for the Business cabin. If so, disregard the seats you see here. If not, count the available seats in the First cabin.

Add up the number of seats you counted in each cabin. This will provide you with the total number of available seats on the plane.

Warning

If there are a limited number of seats available on a flight, the flight may fill while you are reviewing cabins and counting seats.