Herb687

When traveling alone, seats on the 1 seat side of a 1-2 configuration aircraft are preferable to seats on the 2 seat side. This should be pretty obvious. Maybe a few solo travelers don't care. Personally, I doubt that any solo traveler would choose a non-A seat on an E75/CR7/CR9 if an A seat was available.

How many solo passengers opted for middle seats in Y on MD-80s when port side aisles or windows were available? Same concept.

Doesn't B6 price its solo seats in Mint higher than the 2-2 seats in Mint?

OP wasn't complaining about sitting next to someone. OP was simply suggesting that AA's highest value customers should be given first crack at not sitting next to someone if that's the seat they'd prefer. And I find that pretty hard to disagree with.

jcatman

Glorious........I finally made the 1%!

Flying for Fun

Then you would be wrong. I don't like bulkhead seating. If 1A was the only seat available, I would choose a different seat on the 2-seat side. I also prefer a window seat that is situated such that the window isn't at or behind my shoulder. Of course, when I am flying up front on a complimentary upgrade, I am happy to sit anywhere in the cabin.

I also think there is confusion between free and complimentary. Upgrades are not free. If they were then they would be available to everyone; without any conditions in place. A complimentary upgrade is availed, without charge, after it has satisfied some pre-defind condition, ie status. Any AAdvantage Member who holds an Elite Status, whether that is low level Gold or the highest published level of Executive Platinum, has "contributed" to AA directly or indirectly to achieve the "condition" upon which complimentary upgrades are availed. It is well defined within the benefits of Elite status in AAdvantage and likely the impetus that keeps Elites engaged. The defined Elite tiers make up the masses, the "secret society," not so much.

James

cmtlatitudes

This morning. Looking at a possible last minute short trip & both DCA-AXA and DCA-GCM are sold out in F for Saturday.

Actually, it happens frequently booking F/J close in. and not only on popular leisure routes. The last 2-3 years pre-pandemic it was near impossible to book front of plane WAS-BUF within 1-2 days of travel. I can remember at least five occasions I would have flown last minute - off the top of my head - if F was available. Instead I mostly didn't go or drove.

IADCAflyer

How do you know that those seats weren't actually revenue sold seats or award mileage seats? You don't. There are a lot of $$$ chasing F class seats these days.

My trip to CUR last October was sold out in F two weeks prior to departure.

Spanish

I sense some tension here.

I just wish they'd hold upgrades back until gate processing. Elites get their promised benefits while paid premium gets proper reaccommodation during IRROPS.

IADCAflyer

You'll get major pushback from the gate agents on that. Suddenly having to change seat assignments for anywhere from 0 to 16 passengers is going to garner a massive amount of pushback from the gate staff. Not to mention all types of claims of "shenanigans" from those looking to upgrade.

Plus I believe AA would be the only carrier that does this. You'd likely lose more FFs than you'd gain with this type of system.

JJeffrey

But AA does this and has done it for years, which is why I don’t understand some of the moaning on here.

Pre-pandemic I remeber some of the compaint threads (myself included) where flights would be wide open up up front (think J6+) but AA still wouldn't start clearing upgrades till the gate.

In this day and age if a flight is J0 more than a day in advance it's almost certainly due to paid pax and not upgrades.

wrp96

For those of you that are complaining about not being able to buy last minute F because you think people have been upgraded, have you not realized they have been selling out F on many routes weeks in advance? No upgrades, just plain old selling of seats. Now maybe they could've saved one back and made more money from you than they would've made from that other person. But what if you hadn't bought that ticket? Then they would've completely lost out on that other sale altogether, and would still be upgrading one of us mere mortals. Instead of blaming it on those impertinent EXPs (not to mention peon Plats and Golds) getting an occasional upgrade, perhaps blame it on AA revenue management not doing their jobs properly.

wrp96

I tried to book my mom to a popular leisure destination 5 weeks from now, and the only available seats in F involved two stop itineraries and long layovers, all at absurdly high prices to sit in a domestic F seat with no inflight entertainment and most likely a cold meal.

A friend flew to MIA Sunday morning on a regional jet route and F was full up front at the time she purchased her ticket before the EXP upgrade window even opened.

cmtlatitudes

That's kind of my point. You don't know. Unless you've monitoring seats for a longer time on the expectation there 'might' be a trip. Even then you don't know for sure. I've foregone a lot of discretionary trips when F wasn't available. But it's luck of the draw.

Actually, I think now that they're offering paid upgrades for $$, it's an admission they don't think those last-minute high dollar customers are going to materialize on that route and will get what they can for F. I think the $$ upgrade offerings are more of the reason for lack of F/J available late in the game than complimentary upgrades. Extrapolating from that, the thought that AA would deliberately hold back a seat on most routes, just in case a CK happens along at the last minute, seems kind of a ludicrous expectation.

MarkOK

Being at an outstation served only by E145 jets, I would never, ever, think to complain about domestic F seat selection issues on a E175/CRJ900 ! (whether I am paying for it or not)
---------

Any policy with regards to 'seat blocking' for certain types of passengers just can't go well for an airline that goes haywire for three days after a single afternoon storm in DFW. Even if you made it make sense (which I don't think it does).

But, I do agree with the idea that AA should hold back the last 2-4 F seats (depending on aircraft type) until ~T-1 hour. The number 1 reason I never pay for domestic F, albeit at booking or afterwards on the app, is that I have zero confidence that my tiny E145 will make that arrival into DFW on time, and there is next to no chance of getting re-accommodated in F. I've lost more of my complementary upgrades due to that flight being delayed (and usually, by just 20-30 minutes) and/or irrops than I have actually been able to see through. But at least it was just 'complementary upgrades' I lost, and not something I paid for and have to try to claw back some value on.

MSPeconomist

The problem, however, is that the airline cannot charge more for a ticket than the maximum amounts that have been filed for the fare components. OTOH, dynamic award ticket pricing has no such limitation, assuming that the FF program doesn't publish a table of low/high pricing.

Antarius

Yup. Bird in hand vs two in the bush.

Also, the numbers don't make sense to sit on seats. The last numbers estimate for CKs was 11000. AA operated 6700 flights a day. That would require two thirds of the CKs to fly last minute on an even distribution of flights to sell inventory. And if they don't sell (which they won't), they'd have to give them away to these supposedly "mid tier" elites.
​​​​​​Instead, they can monetize them in advance.

I just don't understand how people are coming to these conclusions with zero data. It's as though monetizing seats is some novel concept that airlines revenue management departments don't do.

richarddd

How do they come to these conclusions? Consider the idea behind the famous Upton Sinclair quote, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”