sbm12

It is the facts that you use that are faulty. And your decision to throw them out into the discussion and then not address the holes when they are pointed out does reduce your credibility on that front a bit.

It isn't. It just seems that most disagree with you on the way this should be expressed. Including the few employees who have posted.

Banning employees from F was a bad idea. So is giving them seats that could be given to elites. Continuing to allow them access to pass travel, including the front cabin, seems like a great benefit of their employment. And now that we know they even get some of those rides up front for free I think that the majority of your desires have actually been addressed. Employees aren't going to get to ride up front on transcon routes very often, but neither do most elites.

ADLFO

Well then, it is kind of easy for you to say non-revs should have priority with u/gs since you have nothing to lose.

CLEHillbilly

+1

This thread is completely off topic....and for TWA-FAN yes I may pay that $278 fare, consider that I probably will fly 5 more of those fares in the next 7 days, since I fly allot. Does CO still want that one random FC flier or me who is keeping their planes in the air and a person in "a" seat.

Your unreal dude.

TWA Fan 1

I never said you shouldn't receive an upgrade for being a frequent flier. I think that's one of the great perks of being an OP elite.

All I'm saying is finding a way to reward employees would a nice gesture and would actually help to make the whole gate upgrade procedure much less likely to be prone to the kind of shenanigans alleged by the OP.

TWA Fan 1

It's hardly about me. I was merely trying to suggest a way to reward employees and reduce the likelihood of the kind of corruption alleged by the OP.

channa

Are you suggesting employees are not adequately rewarded? They get pay + health & pension benefits + travel benefits + ontime bonuses, etc.

Frankly it's not a customer's place to be debating employee rewards. They are at will employees, it's a free market, if they don't like what CO offers, they can work elsewhere. If CO doesn't offer enough for the skills they bring to the table, they'd be leaving in droves.

The fact that we see the same faces over and over seems to incidate that they are being compensated reasonably enough to stick around, that this whole discussion is not necessary.

TWA Fan 1

I have actually received a few PM's from employees expressing my gratitude for standing up for them. They told me they were writing PM's because they were afraid of facing the overwhelming torrent of hostility.

I did not address certain mistakes I made earlier simply in an attempt to stay focused, but yes, I have certainly made mistakes.

This whole brouhaha is actually a fascinating case study in the behavior of groups.

No matter how well intentioned one is (my proposal was to reduce the incentive for g.a.'s to sneak non-revs into FC & thus provide CO employees with a generous thank you from customers) one will be excoriated if the proposal involves the group's privileges.

I know that all of you are very touchy about any reduction to your upgrade benefits, and I certainly understand you.

But I would just ask you to consider a proposal (which doesn't have to mine by any means) to reduce the potential for the kind of incident that started the thread so that the entire upgrading process at CO becomes at once more transparent and less prone to corruption.

sbm12

The concept is not the problem, per se. It is the specific proposal.

I came up with a pretty good compromise, I thought. Your continued insistence that the benefit be provided at the expense of customer accommodation is where I see the largest flaw in your proposal. I'm desperately trying to think of any other organization that gives their product to employees with higher priority than customers and does well with that policy. I cannot think of any. Do you have any examples to share?

Oh, and ignoring the problems in your argument to "stay focused" is rich. Thanks for the laugh.

TWA Fan 1

It was attempt to propose a solution to the incentive by g.a.'s to place non-revs in FC in a way that contradicts the rules. By doing so I felt maybe it could be a nice gesture of support by elites to the hard-working employees of CO, who, as it happens, are told by management that certain benefits, such as FC passes, are in lieu of better pay.

It seemed like a nice thing to do. Clearly most here do not agree with me, but that alone does not make it wrong, although I am certainly open to any constructive ideas...

gawhite411

No attack. Just an observation: You are proposing taking away my benefits to give to someone else, namely employees. It's quite easy for you to support this since you have no skin in the game. I'm merely making the point that I too am happy to support a benefit for a third party when I do not bear any of the cost.

gawhite411

[QUOTE=TWA Fan 1;11614668]I think we should all be grateful to the great CO employees and demonstrate it in a tangible way.
QUOTE]

Who should demonstrate it? Not you. You wouldn't bear any of the cost. What you mean is I should pay for it to show your gratitude.

I should pay for it with dilution of my benefits and you shouldn't be effected. How lovely.

Kindly pay my secretary's holiday bonus for me. You bear the cost and I'll show my gratitude.

TWA Fan 1

Well, you will recall that I agreed with your compromise.

As far as employees' benefits cutting into customers' benefits, let's keep in mind that the actual inventory of EUA's is so untransparent and changeable that it would actually be not so easy to quantify this.

There are, unfortunately, plenty of examples of employees taking precedence over customers, including on the airlines, where senior management is allowed to ride for free in the premium cabin.

I am most certainly open to a serious proposal that reduces the incentive for upgrade shenanigans but somehow maintains the "integrity" of upgrades. I write upgrades in scare quotes since what the actual integrity of upgrades means is very hard to know...

TWA Fan 1

Indeed. Please read my post #187 above, the bit about the behavior of groups...

gawhite411

I don't understand how your proposal even does this. Seriously, you are thinking that because employees suddenly get an occasional upgrade to F GA's would have no incentive to give them more F.

If anything your proposal would exacerbate the problem. Under your system, anytime an employee was sitting up front instead of an elite the logical conclusion would be that the elite was on a valid pass and supposed to be there. Meaning, the outrage from elites, at a readily identifiable and unusal circumstance -- non Rev's in F would be removed. Meaning there would be much less scrutiny of any particular employee shenanigans.

channa

Understood. Though I believe your attempt to do this is somewhat misguided, because by caving into CO Management's stance (take these sorts of benefits in lieu of better pay), it will further undermine the needs of the employees. If they can indeed get such passes domestically, then CO Management will no doubt bring it up as a stronger argument next time pay is being negotiated, which will hurt the employees in terms of cash compensation, which is what matters the most.

It's not much different than the ridiculous tipping culture that has been brought about in this country. While the original intent was noble (rewarding people for good service), business have morphed into a necessary part of compensation, and in terms of public policy, a reduced Federal, and in many cases, State minimum wage for restaurant servers and other tipped employees "because they get tip income, they don't need to get paid that much." This in turn has morphed into a public pressure to tip, even if service is mediocre, because the individual doesn't make enough to live, and it would be irresponsible not to do so.

So while your intent here may be noble, if you really want to help the employees' cause, you would counter CO Management's ridiculous argument by arguing how standby BusinessFirst tickets to Brussels are nice, but they don't pay the mortgage.

After all, the employee travel benefits are on a space available basis anyway, which has little to no cost to the Company. It's distressed inventory, much like our precious EUA's. They weren't gonna sell those seats anyway, so let the (Elites/Employees) have it.