Originally Posted by
JBKettle
That's a great statement, but nothing about it is (or, more accurately,) should be necessary. The pilot in F is not operating that flight. The pilot in F in on his way somewhere to operate a flight. Thus, one of two things happened: either AA already knew the pilot would be on that flight and upgraded (or sold) a seat they shouldn't have, or AA failed operationally by not having that pilot where they needed them, when they needed them, thereby creating an emergent situation where a downgrade is necessary. Either way, it shouldn't be necessary, and AA failed somewhere. I don't fault the pax or the pilot, I fault the airline (any of them) for being stupid.
Pilot is going to be there when they need them if they get on the plane. As the prior post correctly said, moving a passenger on Plane A down a class of service to avoid cancelling an entire plane of passengers on Plane B is an easy choice.
AA could resolve this quite easily by just saying that downgraded customers get a full refund for their entire ticket and the next available seat in their class of service. And by actually empowering customer service to execute that solution as planned.