Seat GTE Simple Answer

This means that Air Canada is going to assign you a seat at the gate, but it could mean a lot more than that.

Air Canada Seat GTE More Complicated Answer

• Some small planes (like the 20 seater commuter planes) don't even assign seats
• The flight was undersold and they moved to a smaller plane and therefore all of the old seat assignments don't work
• Most likely answer: They don't have enough seats for the flight you're supposed to be on and they're hoping someone doesn't show up.

Personal experience: I did the self-check in at the airport, probably 2.5 hours or so before the domestic flight. The self check-in machine just happily prints you a potentially worthless ticket without notifying you of its implications.

Searching online for what the heck Air Canada's seat GTE means just results in case reports from bloggers rather than something more official from Air Canada, ie: their website doesn't adress this FAQ.

PLEASE POST HERE WITH YOUR EXPERIENCES. You can help other people, as I found it hard to find a good answer of what this could have meant, good or bad.   

The employees at the luggage checkin desk didn't mention anything about it. While asking at the desk by the boarding area, they just said that our seat will get assigned later. After a short while, they paged a set of names, and I think that being the first in that line probably meant that I got on that flight while those that showed up after may have been bumped.

Lesson learned: do the online web check in FAR IN ADVANCE OF YOUR FLIGHT, even though it overall saves you zero time if you're going to be checking luggage anyway (at least that's how it works in Montreal).

All in all, it worked out well for me, but it would have been nicer to be in the loop for what's going on with the flight I paid for and easier to find out the info when I went searching for it.

What happened when you were assigned GTE?