carlosdca

This would mean that 1A 2A 3A will not be available for anybody.
So someone purchasing a last minute ticket that sees the seats grayed out will think they are not available and will go somewhere else (Assuming that person HAS to get an "A" seat).
or...wait...this person is a CK and will buy the seat anyways...which kind of defeats the premise of this suggestion? (CK will buy the seat any way so getting an "A" seat is not that important)

Herb687

No. The type of "premium block" in SABRE I am remembering would allow those seats to be chosen by certain passengers but not by others and not assigned automatically.

BlooJoo

...or...wait...you don't understand seat blocking.

Antarius

Ordered myself a pin on button for kicks!



I'm just very amused that just because we don't think AA needs to make this change, we either haven't ever been CK, don't understand nice things, are freeloaders, don't understand revenue management, have never used SABRE. Lots of assumptions, with absolutely nothing to back it up.

javabytes

I can imagine how maddening this must be. Having to sit in a B/C seat next to someone else. Like you have to do on literally every non-RJ plane in American's standard domestic fleet.

If the other unwashed masses occupying the front cabin are so intolerable, private is the way to go.

WeekendTraveler

I don’t care if I have a neighbor in FC or not but the OP’s principle- that someone who buys a FC ticket should have priority over someone who is upgraded for free- is reasonable.

Antarius

Do elites who select MCE then get displaced by those that buy MCE? Do EXPs only get free booze and food after paying customers have been offered? Do complimentary checked bags by elites get offloaded in case of a weight/balance issue? Do CKs and elites accessing the AC by virtue of status get asked to leave if AC paid members need space? If I buy a last minute full fare Y ticket and there's only a middle seat, then do I get to boot someone in discount economy out of their space?

I'm not actually looking to debate the above, but pointing out that there are many situations where paying customers and upgraded/elite customers share the same space and things work out in a first come first served basis. AA doesn't differentiate between full fare J passengers, discount J passengers, mileage redemptions and upgrades in cabin.

Also practically, AA can't even execute the basics consistently. Layering on additional complexity and having in cabin priorities by passenger type is definitely not going to go well. As is, one of the posters is frequently raging about AA putting 20F in a321s - can you imagine adding more work on the FA, GAs and that vacuum tube level IT system?

Finally, everyone's seat preferences are different. The only way that paying F customers can always have a selection is to only clear upgrades after they stop selling tickets 30 minutes before the flight. And as discussed above, that completely nerfs the value of upgrades for elites. So, minimal gain for a paid F customer and major loss to a large chunk of customers that AA wants to incentivize to keep flying with them.

deeruck

This truly wonderful. Hoping that someone will also go and update the Flyertalk Glossary definition of EXP appropriately.

I can't find it now but it wasn't long ago that there was a thread about a pax who would not switch from the F seat to the A seat. Seat choices really are matter of personal preference.

Smiley90

I have a large family - AA should hold back 6 first class seats from being sold just in case I might need a walk-up ticket for my family. Wait, what were we talking about!
Sounds like CKs are just entitled and too poor to fly private to me.

And I say this as a pleb that paid 150 dollars extra for a FC seat for 2hrs... (But on Delta since AA doesn't fly the route, does that make it better or worse?)

ijgordon

Which I think is another part of the problem I haven't seen addressed in this thread - AA doesn't have enough FC seats. So they're going to fill up earlier, even with paid F.

carlosdca

assuming this is possible, what if the CK never shows up and that last 1A seat is not sold?
At what point (T-?) do you suggest the seat be "unblocked"?

ER-One

I just blasted through this thread, and right around post #170 my UG cleared for my flight on Sunday (@J5). I audibly laughed in the office.

Here is my (admittedly uninformed) take. Just leave J1 until T-40mins. If they cant sell the last seat by 40mins, then give to an elite. I suspect this already AA's procedure...
My upgrade clearing at ~T-48 is a positive experience for me. This in turn is conditioning me to want to keep status and thus play the LoyPoy game, and thus be a profitable customer to AA.

While i can understand it may be frustrating for a paid J passenger to not have any seeming added benefit for actually paying, i think AA is "delighting" more of its elites as is.
What the paid J passenger DOES get is the ability to sit back and watch us battle for UGs like in the days of the colosseum...

carlosdca

and you actually bought an F ticket on AA knowing that you were going to be in a seat you do not like, which aggravates you so much that you started this thread
Makes sense.

work2fly

To be clear, I said hold back "a few" choice seats. Not to be confused with "quite a few"

I'd support BA/JL style seat blocking on a very limited basis, say Row 2 aisles on the narrowbodies, as an example. And aggressive revenue management on the fare buckets, so many flights have "a few" premium seats left on DOD, and for those that don't, those last seats were sold for absurdly high fares.

beachfan

if the airline does it competently, yes.

but 70% of the time I’ve been upgraded, then downgraded, my Y seat that I had is long gone and I have to be a pain not to get a middle seat (meaning they have to move someone else even lower than lowly me).

If you made that a regular thing , it would be giving your mid tier elites the worst seats. Sure it could be executed better, but AA can’t.

Any battlefield upgrades are substantially less valuable than advance upgrades as posted above.

my upgrade priority dropped dramatically with loyalty points. So if I’m flying coach on a narrow body, I often fly another airline (after 7 years ex plat).