I believe the implication is that those seats would in fact be available to you if you knew who to bribe. And the fact that they were all on the Everest-facing side of the plane suggests that whoever controlled those seats realized that they could get a premium for them.
Also, (speculation warning) it could be the government paying for airline seats to "keep them available" is a kickback. That is, lobbyist paying government officials for a contract that is not needed.
