From a currently holidaying expert :-

"there are cases were crew deadhead (i.e. there is no return for them to operate), there's a flight to ICN like this. in this case they have guaranteed seats in their assigned cabin, e.g. F for Captains (J for FOs). then of course there are other management position. For casual travel it's space available but I suppose it's up to the discretion of the station to deny miles upgrade because they have a Captain waiting for a seat

the ICN flight might be discontinued, but they used to have a flight on an A380 where the next day's flight is a 77W so the A380 crew would deadhead back on the 77W

another case is where a station has e.g. 8 flights a week, with one day having 2 flights then one crew deadheads to the station the day prior and one crew deadheads back the day after. for these situations crew are guaranteed their cabin based on their position in the company"

If you are travelling on duty then you can fly J even if you are not entitled for personal travel

Flying from ARN we saw the crew arrive after boarding time including tech. 1A and K were available up until T-24 when they became occupied.

Got on board to see that Captain and FO occupying those seats. They both said hello to us. Cabin crew were visible in the first rows of J. So the entire crew were deadheading home. They all promptly got changed once on board and neither drank any alcohol, in fact were very low maintenance.

Didn't bother me in the slightest. The seats were free from what I could deduce prior and it didn't impact my experience in any way. In fact, they were very quiet and made for a pleasant flight!

yes as i said above.

for people entitled to F or J it’s priority is based on seniority and length of service

Certainly not my experience in Africa with EK.

I would also add that AF, BA and LH among others seem to have similar policies.

Some EK crew are incredibly professional; others not so much.

Depends on the type of duty.

If you're a group employee being sent to DXB for training, then it's going to be J confirmed.

If you're crew deadheading, then it might be Y - I've known some Captains sent down below/the back on rare occasions!

It's really about why the staff pax is flying, not just their entitlements. The same e.g. captain might have a confirmed F STF ticket, or he might be using an F standby entitlement which pushes him down to J (or Y). It might be a SVP who has F confirmed but voluntarily gives it up for J (:eek:).

And of course the outstation controller might be a dictator and just offload all the STF for revenue pax and let staff take it up with DXB :D

On my last A380 2 class BKK/DXB what appeared to be a full 777 crew boarded in uniform and were all changed and seated in J by the time we boarded.
Obviously there were plenty of spare seats otherwise some would have been in Economy
I had a bit of a laugh with them-you could tell them, even in civvies, by their makeup.
As mentioned before,no alcohol was served to them
SS

I'm not sure on the intricacies of upgrade priority, but this has surely not been the case in my personal experiences. In fact, on our 'confirmed' J class upgradable to F tickets, we'll often only be given our F upgrade as late as the gate with the excuse given that revenue passengers might upgrade to F.

This also depends on the station too. In rare circumstances (not originating from Dubai) I've been given an F upgrade two and three days in advance, but I think this was to help open up J seats for either J upgrades or more Y overbooking.