Originally Posted by
yaofeng
First post on the forum.
I flew back to the States last night from Aruba, AUA-EWR. Currently I am on gold elite. The particular ticket I paid was fare class B. The original roundtrip ticket I paid $816.7 including all taxes and fees. Then there were two changes I ended up paying a total of $1,156.70.
Two days prior to my return I got an email message upgrading me to first class. I flew Newark Aruba very often it was nothing new to me. At the airport I was bumped off, however. This is a first to me. The reason the counter agent told me was they had to make a first class seat available to the co-pilot. Since the upgrade is complimentary I kept mum.
I was the last one to check in. It is the election year in Aruba. On my way to the airport there was a campaign prosession several miles long delaying traffic. The check-in counter was already closed after I returned the rental car to get to the counter. Although I was more than one and a half hour before the scheduled departure time.
Do I have a case?
Hi
yaofeng, we're sorry for the inconvenience, and I'm glad we were able to make it up to you. On a flight like this, overbooking the front cabin isn't intentional, as we only allow bookings up to capacity. While I do not have the complete details, it's very likely that we weren't anticipating the need for a relief pilot on this flight. When that changed, we had had one less First Class seat to work with. Once again, our apologies.
Originally Posted by
sfogate
Deadheading crew members are given a COACH seat, and standby for an F seat. They will be upgraded after all the Elites have been processed.
If you were not onboard at T-15, your seat is subject to loss and will be given to the next person waiting to be seated.
What time did you board the flight?
Hi
sfogate, while this is the case for deadheading crews, we do have a contractual procedure to block a First Class seat for relief pilots on this particular route and aircraft type. In a market like Newark-Aruba, the need for a relief pilot depends on a number of factors, such as whether the same crew is used for the inbound and outbound turn versus an overnight.