Originally Posted by
lsugolfer
Well if I could have still booked a Y seat on the flight, that would have meant I could have used Same Day Confirmed instead of Stand-By. Thus, the flight was "oversold" "overbooked" but still had room for passengers.
This is why this place is so annoying sometimes. Everyone understood the context of the discussion, but people need to offer their 2 cents on the intricacies of an airlines exact terminology.
The phrasing is important only in that "positive space" is a term of art in the industry that refers to those traveling with confirmed reservations for airline business. Particularly because FT seems to view nonrevs with suspicion or even resentment, I think a few posters wanted to be clear that even confirmed employees cannot be upgraded ahead of those revenue pax on the UG list.
(There are cases where the airline will confirm an employee or other positive-space passenger in C, and company officers travel in confirmed F on UA, but generally positive-space employees are booked into Y and follow any UG-eligible passengers on the list.)