What is the purpose of some airlines' policy of limiting free first class upgrades for statused passengers?

Since such upgrades are "space available", the airline should never be giving away anything of any real cost. To determine who gets these available seats, I feel the hierarchy should be as follows:

1) Paid 1st-class
2) Full-fare coach, elite
3) Full-fare coach
4) Paid upgrade
5) FF mile upgrade
6) Elite upgrade
7) Foreign airline elite upgrade
8) Airline employee

This makes the most business sense for the airline, while still allowing (theoretically) unlimited upgrades for statused passengers. Yes, I am an elite on the airline I fly, and yes -- I feel paid upgrades should go ahead of me (apparently, CO agrees). That $50 per segment is real money that goes straight to the airline's bottom line, and they need it.

So what is the reasoning behind limiting the number of upgrades for elites as AA and UA do? I've been told that both airlines "have too many elites", and therefore need restrictions, but exactly how does this policy help? If the seats are available, shouldn't elites get them?

I've been told that UA's employees frequently end up with the seats. If true, I think that's ridiculous. I'm all for giving employees perks and respect, but putting them ahead of statused passengers flies in the face of all business logic.

Except that the employees of the airline have been promised it as a perk. If it was never available, I would think they would notice...

drewman

I think the limit is in place to ensure that space is available in first to satisfy the faint hope that they will sell the seats to last minute flyers.

As a UA 1P I had no problem upgrading 3 people just before the door closed, using 500 milers, on an ORD-LAS flight last month. Seats were empty and it was about 15 min before the door closed.

Where would you rank - upgrade with certs? Would these be the same as paid?

I agree that paying customers should always be upgraded before non-revs. If there are no elites on the plane (highly unlikely) they should then move up a full-fare non-elite coach passenger. The customer service kudos from that could create a loyal future customer.

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I Love New York

I agree that airlines should not limit upgrades by capacity controls. I disagree with your upgrade pecking-order here, however. I think volume over time speaks more than an occasional full-fare passenger. I reward airlines that treat me well regardless of fare paid with my loyalty. If airlines start adopting the "what are you doing for me right now?" policy, I'm not going to concentrate all my travel on one or two airlines, I'll just go for the cheapest each time. I'll re-order your list for you:

1) Paid 1st-class
2) Elite upgrade
3) Full-fare coach, elite (assuming higher elites already upgraded)
4) FF mile upgrade
5) Foreign airline elite upgrade
6) Paid upgrade
7) Full-fare coach
8) Airline employee

As you can see, full fare should be used to break ties among elites. After that, I think it should come just before putting airline employees up front. Otherwise, FF programs and alliances are meaningless.

[This message has been edited by Spiff (edited 01-07-2002).]

First a disclaimer, I detest seeing the employees ride up front over other paying pax. Especially elite pax who are the backbone of the airline. I left DL b/c too many seats were occupied by employees and b/c of the non u/g of LU fares. The last straw was a trip where I couldn't upgrade and six of 12 seats were occupied by employees. So off to CO I went. Now as far as costing the airline revenue:

Now that I said that, I do believe that non revs (employees), it is a cost of doing business, whether it be a contract, or a perq for an employee.

Now if a F seat can be sold for purchase the non rev should be in steerage, however if it is in competition with Y pax either on discounted or full fare Y tix, then I'm not so sure that an employee is costing the airline any money by occupying a set.

I'm sure someone will say that pax will go to other airlines as I did but if all airlines did this then we wouldn't really have any where to go would we?

So from a cost perspective, I'm not sure that employees shouldn't ride up front, from a pax perspecitve I hate it. I think the airlines try to get the right mix to keep as many people as possible happy

What are you guys talking about with this getting rid of capacity control for elite upgrades?

When the flight closes, assuming there are people who want to pay for it with upgrades (or non-revs), first class is always full.

Do you think AA should stop holding some FC seats until the day of departure for revenue?

This is a terrible idea since (1) people want to purchase first class tickets within the 100 hour elite upgrading window and (2) part of the reason first class tickets are expensive is because they're not restricted. Part of the reason AA can justify charging thousands of dollars over coach fares is that they offer their customers the ability to switch flights, even at the last minute, with little or no hassle, since revenue seats are being held until just before a plane departs.

In fact, AA became more restrictive with their coach-to-business class upgrades to Europe last year because fare paying business class passengers complained that there wasn't enough last minute availability for them to purchase tickets or change flights if their business plans changed.

So, what exactly do you folks think should be changed?

d

Keeping seats available for possible paying passengers who appear at the last minute isn't the reason. That's why they won't confirm more than a limited number of upgrades ahead of time, but they have a waitlist to take care of anyone else who's willing to use miles/credits/whatever to move forward. They clear the waitlist at the gate once they've decided that no more paid customers will turn up.

A big part of the reason why AA doesn't give out free upgrades, except on full or nearly-full economy fares and then only to EXPs, is that it would take away a big incentive for high-status FFs to buy first-class tickets or upgrade with miles/points/etc.

I understand that according to the proposal an elite on a low fare would be near the bottom of the priority list, but as a practical matter I can nearly always tell in advance when F would be open enough to ensure me an upgrade on that basis. If I expect that to happen I'll just await the free upgrade instead of using some form of "currency" to "pay" for it. (If I guess wrong I can probably offer miles, or something else, at the gate and get it anyhow.) Multiply that by AA's flight frequency and the number of elites they have, and they'd be leaving millions (if not billions) of AAdvantage miles and mile-equivalents in people's hands that are now being used for upgrading.