screwed out of FC by NWA again
 

I fly up to 5 or 6 times a year in coach, and I don't see anything wrong with the pilots sitting in coach. At my place of work, my attention is focused on the customer. Once on a US Express flight, the dead head sat at the very back of the plane. He could have boot leged somebody out of the Emergency Exit row. But he didn't!!! Now why in the heck ask the FA for the upgrade instad of during check-in? you would have probaly gotten it during check-in.

CD773ER

something to think about
 

How many single mothers out there went to a 4 month program to become a Certified Nurses Aide Heck 8-12 dollars an hour sure beats minimum wage. USA Today tried to put a face on all the paycuts last week. One single mother of three was forced by cut-backs to move from SEA to DTW to keep her job. I almost felt sorry for her and then read the following. Union plane cleaners are being paid 20 dollars an hr. They are balking at a pay cut of 25% to 15 bucks an hour. I hate to say this but: If the Seattle PI had an ad in the sunday paper for plane cleaners for 12 bucks an hr. SEA would have a crowd of applicant's bigger than the Thanksgiving rush. No wonder NW is going broke. BTW CNA's have to clean something a lot worse than peanut wrappers :D

You should've seen the BART workers here. Average station agent: $61,000 per year, and they almost struck over BART wanting to keep their wages stable. :eek:

$61K to sit in a glass booth, and they managed to get a little raise in the new contract. :rolleyes: Extortion at its finest.

Is it nonsensical? Yes. Are you suggesting that employees should be allowed to go against policy so they are happy and in turn treat customers well? That's pretty nonsensical.

Maybe the gate agent should start upgrading all of her friends, because that will make her happier and that means customers will be treated better (while sitting in economy class), right?

I used to work for an airline that would upgrade employees ahead of paying pax, and would not put paying coach pax in three-class F under any circumstance (save an op-up for an oversell in coach). I don't give my business to that airline, I give my business to the airline who puts all elites in F before they put employees in F (save a union contract for a deadheading employee) for no charge.

I used to deal with this mentality (the one that says employees take care of their own) on the United board (I worked for UAX) all of the time. First and foremost, gate agents get in deep deep doo doo for upgrading people they are not supposed to upgrade (read: employees) and it is so easy to catch them. All it takes is one pax to snitch. Second, at UA, all of the different labor groups were very antagonistic of/with each other. Unless the agent was personal friends with a particular employee, I could not imagine an agent even THINKING about upgrading another employee over a revenue pax.

So, I am inclined to give the staff the benefit of the doubt, but may very well drop a line to "talk to us" just in case. I also have high regard for the agents in the LAX WC, who have been willing to look up just about anything I've wanted to know.

The OP and others here are guessing that the GA did something wrong while the only fact undisputed here is that the OP tried to do an end-run around the rules and got called on it.

Rather than continuing the guesswork, I'll just say every time I've seen an FA rather than a GA move someone to First it's been poorly handled. Examples are a CO Plat who kind of went nuts when he had to return to the back on a EWR-LAX flight after I showed up late on a Z fare (the FA told me she had moved him and had me wait in the galley while she told him the news) and a NW Plat who started ranting after a FA made a big show of moving an employee up to the front of a trans-pac flight during boarding. The passengers in each case had no grounds to complain but both situations could likely have been prevented if the FA had not gotten involved.

My experience is that the automated system works great and elites are automatically upgraded at the gate (the beloved buzzing and lights as they scan your ticket) if they are not EUAed. I wouldn't think that pestering the GA really changes the end result.

BTW - great thread title.

I doubt it was because of an attitude problem of the OP or the GA or even a little of both?

But yes, I too would have issues if I was not given an upgrade and any “alleged” non-rev got an F seat before me.

Glad to see I could spark some fire among us...

What I can confirm from the situation was that, prior to my own boarding, I was the last person in the waiting area. I did not get moved until the aircraft was just about to pull away from the gate. I did have a Y fare. And the GA was not very happy with her customers because earlier that day the other flight to my location was canceled and this one took off 3.5 hrs late, and the last 6 weeks of the same flight have been delayed by 2.5 hrs or more and one was canceled.

Moreover, I have seen many times the "I'll show you..." mentality manifest its ugly head in DTW. Often due in no small part to NWA's low on-time record.

Then again, maybe this is just a rant as others have suggested. But as someone pointed out before, isn't an airline, like any other service industry, based on its customer base.


I guess in this case, they have a captive audience, since they offer the only non-stop.

Not everyone in NWA corp pays that rate.

From my understanding, a dead heading FA or Pilot has priority over an upgrade to FC if coach is full of confirmed passengers. Its more important to get a required piece of flight equipment (Pilot/FA) to another flight rested and ready to go than upgrade a frequent flyer.

I might have missed it, but sifting through the feminist movement and childish bickering it can easily be done. What was the city pair in question? Just curious... the OP said COMMUTER flight, so I'm assuming this was a Mesaba avro? I know, it's had to stay on track here.


AZJ

It was DTW-STL.

Surprisingly enough it was not an "Operated by..." flight.

So, was it, NWA, Mesaba, or Pinnacle? Also, please clarify what the "operated by" comment means? Do you mean "operated in cooperation with"?. I am curious why you would ask the FA on the aircraft about sitting in first? Upgrades are done by GA's, period. If you are SE, you know this.

To clarify some definitions:

A deadhead employee is one who is being transported by the company for the purpose of necessity elsewhere. These employees are working, in uniform, and considered on the clock. The pilot's contract allows for FC seating priority over anyone else, even bumping paying PAX. These employees are NOT non-rev's. FA's have option to stand by for FC. To the OP, are you certain that this wasn't a female pilot, and just because she was a female, you assumed she was a Flight Attendant? How can you be sure? This is my guess at what happened.

A non revenue employee is one who is traveling on thier own time and money. They may or may not be in uniform. There is an option of "jumpseating" which means they are technically part of the working crew, sitting on the jumpseat. However, if there is an available seat, they are usually welcome to take this seat. If not, they sit on the jumpseat for the flight. This is when you see those pilots in coach. People usually commute and jumpseat in uniform, simply because it is much easier in uniform dealing with security, etc.
There is also the space available option, when you actually hold a seat assignment, based on open seats available.

Chiming in late here, but -- on a recent LAX-HNL flight, the lead FA, once the door was closed brought a honeymoon couple (it seemed that way) up front. I as a Plat was left in the back. It wasn't a really big deal for me since the seat next to mine was empty and I'd picked up a good sandwich to eat on the flight. But, if she was taking care of people, it would have been nice if she'd taken care of me as well. I expect that she did make some friends for NW of the couple that she upgraded.
This was a really senior FA (if her age is any clue), my guess, one of those who can take her pick of flight to work. She really had the rest of the cabin crew under her thumb.
tom

I've seen it the other way around with the FA put in a bad position regarding upgrades......

The GA (in DTW and crabby as can be) announces that first has checked in full AND no elite preboarding. Everyone boards the plane and Mr/Ms 1B is a misconnect or changed their mind. GA comes on board looks around the cabin and decides to close the boarding door - 5 minutes early with 1B empty and plenty of elites in back (that reminds me, I need to tell Talk To Us about that and see what type of canned response I get).

So once in flight the guy in 2A badgers the FA to let his gold elite friend sit up front because he was gold and F wasn't full (I was in 1C, could hear everything). The FA tried to stick to her guns and say it wasn't fair to the other elites and so on, but after a while, she just gave up and let the guy come up front - I would have too given the short flight and his persistance.

Then they preceded to freak out the entire F cabin by both approaching the flight attendant at the same time near the cockpit door and kind of wedge her into the galley (to say thank you). But that's another story for another time as a couple of F passengers looked up and were ready to pounce........

Maybe the couple had platinum status??? Never assume anything in those situations, you never know what is the situations of other travelers.