MSPeconomist

DL policy is to follow FEBO = front even back odd for order taking on narrow body flights. On wide body aircraft, orders are often taken as passengers board, following a U pattern (front to back on the left aisle then back to front on the right aisle) with nonrevs getting last choice (even if their orders/preferences are taken earlier). Some pursers juggle things to give priority to elites.

However, now DL encourages preordering up to T-24, so only gate upgrades and OPUPs should be at risk of taking what's left.

canadiancow

Or, you know, the last minute full J travelers.

yulsee

"There better"... or he'll chargeback/dispute the transaction with credit card issuer for failure to deliver the advertised/purchased service ?

yyznomad

aka Reverse Horseshoe

songsc

A few years back as a lowly E50K I had difficulty getting salmon on SE heavy routes such as YYZ-YVR.

MSPeconomist

I'm not sure FAs do or should know who has paid what fares for the flight. In particular, those on instrument-supported upgrades shouldn't be treated differently.

canadiancow

I was responding to the "so only gate upgrades and OPUPs should be at risk of taking what's left."

You can't preorder if you're buying walk-up J.

They could, you know, just cater enough to give everyone their first choice 95% of the time. AC is pretty good about that on PLH routes, mediocre on non-PLH, and crap on Jazz.

yyznomad

cow knows this very well.

The PIL does not contain any fare information so the crew will have no clue if someone paid P or someone's upgrade cleared in advance from a Standard fare.

Cleared in advance eUps don't show on the PIL.

canadiancow

Jazz FAs are told very explicitly that ML*1 means upgrade and lack of ML*1 means not upgrade.

Both are incorrect.

Jagboi

Are you sure? They work at the airport after all

Adam Smith

A full J fare, or just any paid J-cabin fare? What if someone paid $1,000 for Latitude and then eUpgraded, and you paid $900 for a P fare? How about on an international flight where someone paid $4,000 for a Z fare bought months in advance, do they get priority over the person who bought a P fare for $8,000 two weeks before the flight? I was on a Z fare the other day and, due to IRROPs, re-routed and ended up in a full J fare on a TATL, even though I didn't pay anything close to a full J fare. When would I get to order? Status is at least consistent and transparent. And with AC over-catering, especially on PLH and international flights, most people are able to get their first choice.

I would also point out that a number of airlines, including LH and UA, ask you for preferences between a couple of choices, and then you find out what they decided to give you when it comes out. At least with them walking around the cabin, it's more transparent. The fact is that unless airlines cater one of each choice for each passenger, there's always potential for someone to not get what they want, and it's an exercise of managing and minimizing the potential for disappointment.

daniellam

Perhaps this might have changed (or will change) for stations where the DCS has already been migrated to Amadeus Altea DCS?

I remember catching a glimpse of the PIL for an ANA flight (they use Altea as their DCS) and beside each passenger name, there is a two letter notation. The first letter being the cabin code (eg. F, C, Y etc.) and the second letter being the fare bucket (eg. J, C, D, Z, P, R, I etc.).

So CJ = Full fare J Class
while
CD = Discounted Business Class
CP = P class peasants
CR = EUpgrade (for AC)
CI = Award and so on

Note: There is a chance that AC might decide not use to the default PIL report from Altea DCS which includes this type of information and instead try to map only the data fields they need to a custom PIL report that looks just like the one from their old DCS?

yyznomad

You guess is as good (or better) than mine.

RZR

Recently. took a Rouge flight in J Cabin. 12 seat cabin. I was seated in last row. Full Revenue J fare base
SD took orders in row 1 first , then 2, then 3.
She paused halfway through to tend to other stuff. I had already overheard that one of the selections was no longer available.
15 mins later, she continued to ask for selections by row.
She gets to my row and I am last to be asked. She proactively states that only one selection remains.
I ask if the procedure has changed and that SE's are no longer asked of preference agead of other J cabin passengers.
"Oh, sir , we no longer receive these details on the manifest" I asked if this if Rouge specific , and she replied the same.

I knew this was not the case , but dropped it as I did not want to get into some heated discussion

She asked if I wanted a cheese plate form Y and some other stuff, blah blah blah. I declined , I wanted pancakes as the other option was some sort of Brocolli breakfast thing.
I was

Days earlier I had a wide body domestic long haul and was asked last and I was second boarded out of 32. No prob, as they had omellete available regardless. It did make me wonder , so halfway thru the flight I wandered up front to speak to the SD, Deborah. I must say this is SD is top shelf and you can tell she loves what she does.

I explained what happened. She confirmed that indeed SE's are asked first and that she had me and 1 other passenger showing on her Ipad as SE . She apologized and it must of been an oversite by the agent who was roaming the cabin.
[ I thought perhaps that my profile details had some glitch , but all seems good. ]

canadiancow

Your rouge experience sucks. But if you got what you wanted, there is zero evidence priority wasn't adhered to. If there were 2 SEs in the cabin, then until they were down to 2 of anything, there is no need to jump to you to guarantee your priority. And if the other SE was sitting in row 1 and was asked first, then as long as they had 1 of everything, there's no need to jump to you to guarantee priority.

Some FAs are definitely smart enough to recognize this, and it makes the process much more efficient.

Recently I boarded a flight pretty late, and the FA seemed somewhat annoyed because she had been "unable" to start her meal order process. Like... go do your stuff, and if you get down to 1 of something, stop and wait for me. But I bet she could have gone pretty far through the cabin before she would have had to stop and wait for me.

I've had 438 AC flights in J as SE. They have failed to give me my first choice exactly once. And I'm pretty sure that was because the SD, being proactive, had printed out a sheet of all the SEs before my upgrade cleared (not that I think that's a reasonable excuse).