On another thread, someone asked about information regarding stand bys and upgrade lists. The all controlling element in this, and I am sure sometimes the bane of your lives and many airline employees.. the 'PALL list".

The Pall list.

This is the name of the list that agents use to see who is standing by and who is requesting an upgrade. What you see on the monitors at each gate is an abbreviated list of what the agents see and use to award upgrades on good days, or solicit volunteers on bad days.

This is influenced by two factors, status and time. Status is everything, and if you are Executive Platinum, Platinum or Gold, you go on the list above all else, which is the way it should be. The only people that go on the list before the top three tiers are over sales. As you will see, the pall list is all acronyms (it wouldnt be an airline otherwise) and numbers.

I hope that the following information will give you some ideas of how the list works, and what the agent can and cannot do.

Lists can be as long as your arm, or on quiet days, non-existent. Once coming out of Heathrow as a non-rev, I was number 56 on the list, with five other non-revs in front of me. I figured I had no chance of getting on the flight and the gate agent told me so, but to wait around until she had taken care of the revenue passengers and she would look at other options for me. I waited and the non-rev gods must have been in a good mood that day as I managed to get a seat in first class. Just goes to show that sometimes it is worth waiting until the very last moment as things can change by the second.

As mentioned above the Over sales go straight to the top of the list. Therefore, before we get to the stand by lists I thought I would take a moment to go a little deeper in to that, apologies to those of you who might already know this.

Those of you who have received a "priority card” when checking in at the airport and are told you are on the list for a seat will be familiar with this. Just because you have a priority card, it does not mean there have been over sales. AA's seat control dept block a certain number of seats on all flights for a number of reasons. They block these seats for customers with disabilities. DOT regulations require all airlines to provide confirmed seats to these customers. The DOT has fined airlines up to $25000 for each occurrence. Certain seats are also blocked off (depending on the equipment type ) for any of the following reasons : Unaccompanied minors, crew rest, the seats have removable arms, bassinet seating for infants, or the seats have been blocked by Premium Services for top tier members.

There are at least 10 different codes used to identify blocked seats, some of these seats can be unblocked by the airport agents from 24 hours before departure time, some can only be unblocked by the gate agent from 30 minutes before departure time. Once all customers with any special requirements have been accommodated, the agent may then start giving these blocked seats to the people with priority passes, starting with the top tier passengers. Here again, status comes in to play. If you are Executive Platinum, you will be OS1, Platinum will be OS2, and Gold will be OS3, regular AAdvantage and normal revenue passengers will be just OS.

That is a brief bit of info on over sales, on to the standby/upgrade list.

There are three upgrade codes according to tier, UPG1, 2 and 3 . UPG1 is Executive Platinum, UPG2 is Platinum, and UPG3 is gold, UPG is for regular AAdvantage members. Your place in the upgrade list depends on your status and the time you went on the list. The amount of miles compared to another flyer in your tier is irrelevant, if they listed before you did, they will be above you on the list. The list will always be in numerical order, so even if you were Platinum who listed before Executive Platinum, you will still be a UPG2.

Here are some examples:

1/ I am an Executive Platinum and you are a Platinum. You listed before I did for the upgrade, but my code is UPG1, and yours is UPG2. So regardless of when you listed, I will be higher up the list. Your friend on the same flight is an Executive Platinum, and even though he has flown more miles than I have, I am still above him on the list as I listed before he did.

2/ You are a Platinum and so am I, we are both at the ticket counter and ask to be listed for an upgrade, you are in front of me in the line. You will be UPG2, and I will be UPG2, but you will be higher on the list than I will as you listed before I did, despite the fact that I have flown 10000 more miles than you have this year.

I have heard from people at the check in counter that they called in to the help desk right at the 100/72/24 hr mark to list and found out that they still weren’t close to the top of the list. One of the reasons that this might happen is that you can actually put your request in when making the reservation up to 330 days out. Sabre will store the UPG request and automatically try to upgrade you at the threshold time. Sabre stores the requests in the order they are received so if you made a reservation 300 days out and requested the UPG, you will be in front of the person who made their reservation at 200 days out. Remember, the system runs on its own time, so your watch may not match "sabre time”.

On to stand bys then.

As with OS and UPG, stand bys have their own code, R, with a 1, 2 or 3 according to status. Again, your listing depends on status and the time you listed. After the “R “ other codes appear, usually beginning with a D , these are AMR and other airline employees, their family or friends.

The stand by list you see on the screen at the airport, is nothing like the screen the agent sees in Sabre. While I cant give you a screen shot, I can give you some idea of what it looks like.


1 OS1 DOE JOHN
2 0S2 SMITH JOHN
3 OS GREEN TOM
4 UPG1 WHITE JOHN AG2
5 UPG1 SMITH MARY AG2
6 UPG3 JOHNSON MARK
7 R1 HERNANDEZ BILL
8 R2 SEGAL PAM
9 DRX KING LARRY
10 D1 SIMPSON MARGE
11 D2 KINNER NEIL
12 D2 SKINNER AMANDA
13 D3 ONEAL RONALD

From the above list you can see that :
Pasenger 1 is an Executive Platinum who is waiting for a seat number.
Passenger 2 is a Platinum who is waiting for a seat number.
Passenger 3 is a non AAdvantage member waiting for a seat number. Passengers 4 and 5 are Executive Platinum waiting or an upgrade.
Passenger 6 is an aadvantage Gold member waiting for an upgrade. Passenger 7 is an Executive Platinum hoping to go standby.
Passenger 8 is a Platinum hoping to go stand by.
Passenger 9 is a discount revenue passenger hoping to stand by for an earlier flight.
Passengers 10 thru 13 are non revs trying to catch the flight.

There are about 5 or 6 other columns to the right of the names. in these columns would be information such as what class of service you are booked in, which class you are upgrading to, destination code. There is also a remarks column, in which the ticket counter agent or the gate agent can put in such things as “intl connection” ‘medical emergency”.

If you look at passengers 4 and 5 you will see a code after thier names, this is to tell the gate agent that they are travelling together. This is handy for the GA to know as there might not be enough seats to upgrade both passengers and the GA can then ask if they still want the upgrade for one of them, or if they want to stay sitting together in coach.

Any transacton in the pall list is recorded in the history file. Who put the person on the list, who gave them a seat etc. This allows the company to review pall lists to ensure that people are processing the requests correctly, and to ensure they are taking care of premium passengers, not giving away seats to non-rev friends.

I hope that this attempt at explaining the pall list is of benefit to you all, I am open to any questions you might have, I know I came up with a few whilst reading it myself.