Originally Posted by
Dave Noble
Given information above that the staff were pilots 'deadheading' , then makes sense to downgrade someone
What doesn't seem to make sense to me is to downgrade someone paying full fare - surely there were some on board that were on cheaper fares - why pick someone who would have the largest refund to pay to ?
My understanding from reading FT over the years is that AA (as with UA) chooses downgrades by the reverse of the complimentary upgrade priority (so non-status gets ordered by rolling LPs). If F to Hawaii was otherwise booked by elites, a full-fare no status pax would get picked instead of a complimentary upgrade or SWU-applier (UA would prioritize by fare class as well, but it's probably the same dynamic).
DL policy IIRC is to retract upgrades first (including reversing certificate upgrades) before downgrading a revenue or award passenger (award being considered equivalent to revenue).
I believe all will downgrade a non-rev who can be downgraded (which in AA's case would not include a deadheading pilot).