cmd320

It does seem somewhat ridiculous that the FA can't open their phone, access the latest upgrade list once the door is closed/boarding is complete, make a PA asking for the next eligible individual to ID themselves, and move them forward. Doesn't seem like it would be difficult to do at all to me.

MSPeconomist

PMNW would sometimes instruct passengers to move up after the seatbelt sign is turned off after takeoff or to wait until then to move carryon items. It worked fine.

BuffaloBills10

No, not really. I don't really have a flight in my repertoire for work that exceeds 3:30 hours and I can stomach any seat on anything Delta offers for that long.

I am more curious about what is abstract about this specific situation when I am boarding a plane and seeing 4 open seats on the monitor with myself being 1 or 2 on that list and eventually never getting the upgrade when 95% of the time I would receive it.

mctaste

I would rather the flight be on time than delayed to move people into seats they did not pay for.

MSPeconomist

Then you should be in favor of elites getting upgrades that they have paid for with instruments or earned as a published elite benefit but not nonrevs who are traveling on "free" tickets anyway.

cmd320

Competent staff should be able to handle both. Especially when they board a domestic narrowbody 40 minutes before departure.

HaleiwaFlyer

Incompetent staff is the crux of the issue. The op waited at the gate thinking you board you lose, and still lost without boarding first. The fault lies with the gate agent not doing the upgrades properly.

What Delta needs to do is hand over the responsibility of upgrades of empty first class seats to flight crew once the door closes which I doubt they will do.

It seems you will lose your upgrade no matter when you board, when the gate agent doesn’t do their upgrade duties.

An equipment swap allowed 13 lie flat seats to be available, the HNL gate agent upgraded every single person before the flight and also the domino effect of comfort plus seats. This is an example of a competent staff.

mctaste

Upgrades after boarding sounds great. Lets open the overhead bin, move everything around to get the bags, take the bags to the front, move everyones bags around up there to make room, and seat the upgrades flyer. Multiplied by the number of empty seats.

HaleiwaFlyer

And the sky is falling. GA already do this now before the door closes. I think you are misinterpreting my post to say make all upgrades after the door closes. Rather I am saying have FA upgrade people to empty FA seats after the door closes when the GA doesn’t have time.

cmd320

Agreed. There’s no reason this should take more than a minute and the reality is the door normally closes long before pushback anyway.

MSPeconomist

PMNW managed to do this without delaying flights, so DL FAs should also be able to do it. In fact, it should be easier now since upgrades lists are shown on the app and presumably can also be transmitted to FAs' iPads if it's too hard for the GA to print the upgrade list and give it to a FA before the door closes. Using the list on the app also gives a certain degree of transparency and enables FAs to go down the list if the person at the top declines to move to an empty upgrade seat for some reason.

WillBarrett_68

yeah, none of them say that the GA must pull up people who have already boarded.

WillBarrett_68

I don't see how that follows the statement you replied to at all.

* nobody is being denied upgrades unjustly in these scenarios.

* processing upgrades after boarding does require some amount of effort and GA time.

* post-door-closing nonrev upgrades don't require GA effort.

* and, btw, non revs have earned their upgrades (and tickets) too.

Qwkynuf

Do you know what else "Pre-Merger" NW managed to do?

Fail.

More than 10 years ago.

They should hardly be the standard by which the operation of an airline should be measured.

And why "Pre-Merger"? Is there a "Post-Merger" Northwest flying around, that I'm not aware of?

ethernal

First and foremost - the post you quoted is nearly two years old. I have noticed a significant improvement in Delta doing battlefield upgrades now - in fact at least half of my F upgrades are from battlefield these days.

I agree that getting the flight out on time is the #1 priority. However, many times that I had historically seen F go out with empty seats (or filled with a nonrev), we pushed long before D0 with no threat to A0 (due to jetstream, etc - sometimes Delta does push to get a plane out 10 minutes early when A0 is at risk due to a longer route or bad jetstream - I have no issue with that either).

There's no reason not to spend the 3 minutes to do the upgrade if everyone is already seated and it is still T-10 to departure (and again, to Delta's credit, they've gotten better at that).