Originally Posted by
steveholt
You're certainly entitled to your opinion, but DL and UA have the same (or very similar) policies, so saying "I don't care what the contract provides for" isn't going to make much of a difference here. Pilots flying in the highest cabin on the way to work is part of the reality of air travel in the US. I suspect that there would be plenty of kvetching if a flight got cancelled because a pilot wasn't able to position to make that flight because AA wasn't willing to bump a passenger to get them on the plane. (And between the two, bumping passengers from F to Y seems preferable to bumping passengers from Y to the gate).
I don't really care how unpopular of a position this is. Deadheading time is duty time, not rest time. Arguments that pilots need seats in the highest cabin to be well-rested to safely operate flights fall flat on that basis. Long story short - pilots just wanted it, and capitalized on the opportunity afforded by pilot shortages during contract negotiations, making this a relatively
recent reality of air travel in the US. If there's a seat open in back to downgrade someone to, that same seat could seat a pilot without having to downgrade anyone. If the flight is completely full, downgrading a J pax to a seat that a Y pax is bumped from (displacing two customers), or completely bumping a J pax are poor outcomes. I'm curious how many more Jim Breuers it takes before AA and other airlines start to revisit this practice in future contract negotiations.
What I did appreciate about DL is that they very clearly spell out in their CoC the criteria they use for handling oversale situations. AA does not. And while DL's criteria won't really deal with downgrades, they do essentially provide a guarantee that Gold or higher elites, and a few other categories of passengers, will never be IDB'd entirely from a flight, unless they completely run out of lower elites/non-status passengers to bump first.