F seats held for staff?
 

Strange experience today trying to do day-of-departure upgrade (C to F) on the EK162.

There were three F seats available for purchase right up to T-60 but trying to upgrade with miles at check-in failed. The senior Swissport staff member (at F check-in) said that the “manager” was holding these seats for staff. Presumably this means Emirates station manager?

Asked again on boarding but F was full at that point.

Random event?

I reported something similar on EK163 DXB-DUB not so long ago... seats were blocked and on boarding it was obvious they were staff / friends / family as the pilot and crew came down to say hi to each of those passengers. Someone on this forum informed me that its likely to be staff travel which is guaranteed an F seat based on seniority. For the record, Ive no problem with this. I was just reporting what i noticed.

Yeah - captains are guaranteed F class travel I believe. It could also have been positioning crew.

Crew wont get f, pilots and their families over 16 (could be 18) get F, first officers is j unless dead heading.

Station Managers don't get F when travelling for work. They travel in J in my experience then. Supervisors and below go in Y when travelling for work.

I actually meant Flight Deck Crew :)

anyhow if you give them revenue like upgrade money or miles, those seats should be yours, their allowance should be "F space available".
i recently bought 3 out of 6 F seats on a 777, and the remaining seats all got used during the flight (did not bother us as we had the left side of F class to us). on the right side, the purser moved his office to 1K, and other crew members used the remaining seats during the flight.

As long as they dont sit in 2A or 2K I'm pretty happy. Pilots tend to keep to themselves in F and IME you can have some good conversations with them if they're in a talking mood and you recognise them as pilots.

In new F, quite hard to have a conversation with someone sitting in another seat

Could also be senior company execs travelling for work (VP or above)

I had about 8 crew on a flight in J once. They were all junior crew working in Y. They boarded the aircraft in uniform, got changed in to normal clothes then on landing they had to get back in to uniform. They were not allowed to drink but apart from that they were treated like any other passenger after take off.

Pilots or senior staff will likely get the F seats over miles upgrades.

I think captains get F, first officers get J.

I was talking about ground crew. In my experience only the ASM (Airport Services Manager) gets J. All below get Y. In Africa, when flying between stations, EK ground staff below station manager would have to fly EK via DXB in Y, from for example from Luanda to Joburg!

I know someone who had a very senior position (director level) at another airline.
Apart from travelling for work in F, he and his wife also had unlimited private travel in F. His children in J up to age 25.
But this was always a normal, booked seat, as if it were a commercial booking (if there was a seat for sale, he could book it) so it would not be clear to anyone but the cabin staff that he was 'different'.
After retirement, this situation continued for 5 years. Now it is down to two round trips per year on a space available basis 9and he has to pay the surcharge and taxes).
From what I read upthread (and that is the point of my response), I can't see how it works for EK staff with F privileges. Is it something like 'space available at T-24 or something like that? Guess it also depends on where in the pecking order you are....