Originally Posted by
Herb687
As far as I remember, all NRPS deadheading by pilots and FAs is only confirmed in coach and they must standby for F/J. If this is still the case, they would be on the Priority List as a UPGE (or UPGET) and should be upgraded after any category of revenue passenger requesting an upgrade. There are different A* business pass classifications behind the scenes (i.e. flying to cover a trip is higher priority than flying back to base after a trip) but that all takes place automatically behind the scenes - agents don't manually decide what subcategory of UPGE a crewmember is. Again, the key point here is that based on my fuzzy memory there is no A* pass category for deadheading crew that jumps revenue pax requesting upgrades.
I was under the impression (I may be mistaken) that with UA, pilots/mechanics/crew who were being repositioned by the airline to urgently (unlike ordinary sequencing) fly a plane somewhere were put in F. Could AA have something similar?
(It doesn't fully explain this case, as presumably there are reserve pilots at DFW.)