aster

Just planning a trip in advance for my mother-in-law and with the dates being completely flexible I thought I'd do an upgrade on the return leg from SIN. Now I know I can check for upgrade availability ahead of time, but if the cabin fills up at a later date then I suspect those even with a confirmed upgrade will be involuntarily downgraded ahead of paying biz pax right?

So is there a certain day of the week when the biz cabin has slightly lower loads than other days? I assume weekends, where there will be less paying biz pax but probably more "bumps" from Y as the econ cabin oversells?

WilcoRoger

I haven't heard of confirmed u/g being involuntary downgraded - would be quite an expensive excercise for AY due to EU/261.

kauppias

Is a cancelled upgrade considered a downgrade under 261 since the purchased ticket is Y?

intuition

You must have missed my rant about that.

But that coincided with equipment change, and what Aster suggests is a oversell of J with the intent of bumping F pax. That I haven't heard about.

As for EC261/2004 and downgrades, the text says something like "not being transported in the travel class purchased". It is very likely that airlines like AY will claim Y is the purchased class, as they don't consider points transactions to be a purchase. As a matter of fact, when I was downgraded all AY ever said was "what are you upset about, you are getting your points back".

My take on this is
* All AY upgrades are to be considered standby and not confirmed
* Compared to oversold Y, oversold J is extremely uncommon, ie F wont get kicked under normal circumstances
* but with equipment change all bets are of. First people to be kicked out of J is F-pax and those travelling on corporate fares.
* And finally tier status has no effect on who gets kicked

intuition

The only time I've ever experienced oversold J is staff-tickets. AY seats off duty staff and their family in J cabin even when there are 42 sold J tickets.

Kind of shows the pecking order...

aster

Whoa, biz-paying pax were ousted from the biz cabin to make way for off-duty staff?

WilcoRoger

AY and EU261 - I'd leave that to the small claim courts to figure it out. As you're "foreign" you could make use of the EU small claims procedure. Alternatively there are a number of specialised sites doing the heavy lifting for the pax on a no win no fee basis.

Of course one can refuse the downgrade and demand a reroute in C - for longhaul that could be a more comfy solution. (or could eventually lead to an IDB)

intuition

Don't know if anyone was denied J, but we travelled 43 (or was it 44, can't really remember) pax in a cabin with 42 seats, accommodating one off duty staff and his family. The staffer's kids were seated in jumpseats during take off and landing and roaming the J cabin rest of time. They all had J service, and were attended to before paying customers.


Exactly what I did in my case. AY bluntly refused to put me on the AY codeshare with JL leaving within 30 minutes of the AY flight but I was able to battle my way onto the next day AY operated flight.

aster

This still counts as an IDB, right? Do you receive any form of compensation in this situation?

intuition

I made a complaint, mostly about they not notifying me about the downgrade and their indifferent attitude towards the upgrade instrument. I was given nothing and decided it wasn't worth the trouble persuing. As a matter of fact, getting the next day flight was difficult enough, and I believe someone had to bend some rules for that. So I was made grateful twice, getting the third best solution for free and for learning a valuable lesson about AY upgrades









*) I got vouchers back despite reroute was in J, but I am pretty sure that was a mistake by AY.

aster

So in this case they can oversell without any consequences, and if too many pax show up they simply tell those with a confirmed upgrade to come back tomorrow as if nothing happened?

Getting back to the original question - is there a day of the week that consistently has at least slightly lower loads in biz?

SPBanker

No, they don't do that. It was last-minute equipment change.

aster

Equipment change ex-HEL, right? So they knew about it 1/2-day earlier but just rode their luck that someone would not show up?

intuition

If we are still talking about me, it was ex-NRT, so they knew about it at least 1,5 day before. No attempt to sovle the situation in any other way than to bumb me when arriving at airport.
But this is drifting off topic. You can PM me if you want to know more.

ffay005

An hour ago, I received an email offering a paid upgrade of 348 euros for SIN-HEL. This flight leaves SIN on Sunday 26OCT. The seat map showed all but three J seats empty. Whereas the seat map is not a reliable load indicator, it certainly hints that there's a lot of empty space in J.

Btw, I accepted the offer. I think 348 euros is good value for such a long flight even if the plane is a 340. What do you think?