gooselee

At one point I found some article describing the history of fare codes and how the common ones like Y/J/F/C/etc. ended up being what they are.

I remember it being an interesting read, but apparently not enough to remember much of it.

A long while ago I worked at a travel agency and we'd occasionally have to hand write tickets when the printers went down - this was when tickets were printed on that 8-ply pink duplication paper stuff - I distinctly remember writing up lots of "Y" tickets back then and being shocked at how much people were paying for what could be a simple 8 hour drive.

HWGeeks

aren't Z fares discounted first class.

ethernal

Gooselee was proposing a simplistic fare code structure that has fare class priority ordinal to the alphabet (i.e., Z = rank 26, A = rank 1) that aligns to the "root" codes for fares (F, J, Y). It isn't how it actually is (nor will it ever be that way).

gooselee

That was rogo's proposal, not mine.

It certainly is an interesting one if someone could ever get all the carriers to agree to it. I know lots of the fare code shuffling DL has done lately has been to align with AF/KL and other partners.

pvn

Why would any carriers agree to this? Some of them are going to want more buckets in a given cabin, some fewer, and again, 99.99% of travelers will never even notice this stuff. Even most elites will literally never buy anything but the cheapest available bucket in their desired cabin.

CO-PLAT

PDX-DTW last week and I'm number one for zero 1st class seats. I asked the GA if I should wait or go ahead and board. I asked if she would get me if there was a no show. She said "Ummm, you know how it works". I said "Yes, YBYL...I'll just wait". She then said "well, since you asked me, go ahead and board now and I promise I'll come and get you if there is an available seat".

She just outright admitted that her standard operating procedure is to not come get people on the upgrade list if there are no shows. There were none on this particulart flight.

StayingHomeIsBetter

This is a good example of why the new "policy" should not be left to GA discretion.

There are ways that proper planning and a little initiative could allow time to bring folks up from coach... under all but the most exigent circumstances. Even then, FAs could be allowed to bring folks up after the plane reaches cruising altitude.

But, consistent implementation of a sensible policy will not occur until DL management make this an imperative, monitor for compliance, and hold GAs accountable.

To measure is to know… If you can not measure it, you can not improve it. Lord Kelvin (1824 - 1907)

jamesteroh

Gate agent at ATL on my ATL/DTW flight Monday was nothing like the great GA experience I mentioned last week flying from DTW to ATL.

There was a maintenance issue on my first flight from LIM to ATL and by the time it was fixed it was past the 1:45 a.m. curfew to leave Lima so we were stuck there until 5 a.m. (Delta and the crew was amazing in how they handle the delay) Diamond desk protected me on the first DTW from ATL that would leave after our flight was due to land in ATL and since it was such a tight international connection protected me on the flight after too.

i managed to make it to the gate just in time and boarded to find someone sitting in my FC seat. At first I thought the GA had thought I misconected and upgraded the next person on the list but realized it was weird a new seat assignment didn't spit out. The lady asked if I had that seat and I showed her the boarding pass and when she got up noticed she she had a Delta ID and she want back to first and there was also a rollarbag above my seat with a crew tag on it (which she didn't take back with her to coach). The FA put my bags in the closet.

In this case it was probably a good thing the GA used YBYL or I would have been stuck in a coach middle seat or taking the flight an hour later.

Often1

There is. But, it means requiring passengers to be at the gate no later than T-20. At T-20, no shows in F are offloaded and any seats remaining are filled from the UG list. That still allows the GA to close the flight and the Captain, dispatch and other functions (fuel & bags) to finalize and calculate w&b and still do an ontime push.

But, that's going to mean more misconnecting pax at T-20 than at T-15. The exact metrics are beyond me and beyond anybody without access to proprietary data.

I'd rather go back to a solid YBYL and then give GA's the discretion to act when there really is time as there sometimes is.

MSPeconomist

I don't see what this has to do with YBYL. If you arrive at the gate too late, you are offloaded from the flight and may or may not be able to be put back onto it, in FC or in coach. If you boarded successfully with your FC boarding pass, you still have the FC seat indicated on your boarding pass. The FA just moved herself into what she thought would be an empty FC seat. Some of us call that poaching.

StayingHomeIsBetter

Is the fraction of connecting folks arriving late to the gate due to late inbound flights all that high?

Doesn't DL have the IT capability (I know, I am being generous) to develop a system to let the GA know that Mr. X and Ms. Y are at the gate and are likely to make the flight while Mr. M and Ms. N are still in the air and are not. People brag here about how good DL's technology has gotten for predicting the tolerable number of oversells required to maximize income without risking excessive denied boardings. Why can't similar protocols/algorithms be developed to inform the decision about whether or not to UG someone into a FC seat when it is clear the inbound pax will not make it.

In the grey zone situations, leave the seat empty and if it remains empty at departure, allow the FA to bring someone up during the flight.

Too much energy is spent here providing excuses in order to give DL management a pass on this issue. Once a decision is made that there is a problem worthy of solving, then it can be solved.

But, with the available evidence, one is tempted to conclude that, once every FC seat that can be sold has been sold, Mr. Bastian and his minions are not too exercised about how many FC seats go out empty with elites in coach longingly eyeing them from afar.

ethernal

Well there's your problem.. for whatever reason, the PDX gate agents are the worst. I've had my seats changed randomly (sometimes from aisle to window which is a pretty significant change), C+ upgrade list completely ignored (upgrading #2 on the list to a great aisle C+ seat while I was #1 and in the last row of the plane in the middle seat), and even a situation where no one ever cleared for an open F seat that went empty at departure (even though it showed up as available at the gate).

YBYL is the last thing I'd worry about as it relates to PDX gate agents.

pauly_long

+1

Gate agent in SAN did almost the exact same thing to me (I was #1 on UG list) and 2 NRSAs cleared into F after boarding. I sent a complaint to Delta and they called me the next morning, and sent me a note with an apology and 5,000 skypesos.

CMK10

Flew RDU-DCA on a CRJ-700 today. The passenger in 5A was moved up to 3A (C+ to F) just before the door closed. The gate agent came on with a new BP for him and moved him up and after checking the list based on the GA calling him by name, he was next for the upgrade.

ethernal

A strike against the ending of the YBYL policy: I was about 10 minutes late boarding a flight as I was on a call - Sky was still in the process of boarding. I hung up and walked over to the gate and heard my name being paged at the gate. I went up and the gate agent told me to stick around for a few minutes and he could probably get me an F upgrade. I stick around for 5 minutes and he then calls me back up and hands me a boarding pass for 3B.

All of this is great.. except I was #5 for 1 on the original upgrade list. There were three folks ahead of me on the upgrade list that didn't clear and should have cleared before me. The flight ended up leaving 7 minutes early so it's not like they didn't have time to get the plane out. It worked out for me, but it still seems like YBYL is an exception. This is the first time I've ever been upgraded on this route (was batting 0 for about 30-35 flights) so it was nice but still somewhat unfair to the other pax.