MrMillion, I agree wholeheartedly, and I clearly labelled the issue as an "Elite benefit" issue in the thread.
But I think asking Randy to express an opinion is also asking him to draw a line in the sand. Blairvanhorn and I talked about this in a smoky café on the Right Bank in Paris a couple of days a go [ that was such fun!]. I thought about it afterwards, and I do believe there is only one answer. Once the line in the sand is drawn, action has to be taken in Coupon Connection. But I don't think FT has the means to police what's going on.

Therefore, turning a blind eye is the only way until a moderator is in place, I am afraid. Randy might prove me wrong.

I'm not sure if someone else posted this already, but I suspect that most of us who have seen a dot matrix printout hanging on the wall of a galley hare not actually looking at the manifest. Most people have snuck a peek at the printout with the boxes that FAs use for meal service. I don't know what it's called, but that's what they hang up, for reference. The manifest is the one line per seat listing that is usually found folded up by the jumpseat, thrown about wherever, since it seems like the crew don't use it once they get underway. I have seen it from afar but would never go so far as to pick it up or look at it... but you would hope that the crew would put it more carefully away.

Hmmm, is that a pistol in your pocket, or are you just happy not to have dealt with the IAD 1K room?

But Sean, you were moved to a middle seat on CO for "security" reasons, and you complained about it on FlyerTalk (valid complaint IMHO). At least you weren't kicked off the flight. Why do you believe AA in the Secret Service incident?

As someone who has worked in Law Enforcement, it is drilled into our heads to ensure that paperwork is completed CORRECTLY. I too would be suspicious of someone claiming to be a LEO and exercise PCFA priviledges if they were unable to complete the relevant paperwork on THREE seperate occasions. Granted, the first set of papers can be attributed to the gate agent, but the subsequent ones raised enough probable cause for the captain's suspicion to be aroused. At that point, he exercised his authority to deny PCFA priviledges to the passenger. The passenger was still welcome to travel without his firearm, which of course he could not do because of Secret Service regulations.

My situation with the Continental pilot was different because I was NOT trying to carry a firearm aboard, I was NOT questioned but simply instructed to move to a middle seat and Continental's excuse about the entire incident was not an explanation but rather a denial that it ever took place.

How can the AA Captain complain about paperwork when he didn't say anything about it until the FA told him she was "concerned" after having rifled through his personal belongings, finding a book on Middle East history, while he was away from his seat? Bad paperwork is just an excuse.

Here's a question for you folks. Why do you care? I'm really curious. Why the interest in the manifest.

The flight attendant could HAND me the manifest and I'd be like, oh, that's neat. Depending on how long the flight was, I might actually even find my own name on it and see what it said about me. But it would have to be a long flight.

I may be the exception here, but I'm just not interested in seeing who's on the plane with me and what their status is. I do not understand the fascination with the manifest, especially since we are not supposed to see it.

Ah, maybe that's it. Since we're not supposed to see it, it becomes interesting. Now I get it.

So, basenji and liz, the way to keep people from peeking at the manifest is to hand it to them. Then they'll just put it in the seat pocket and forget about it =)

[This message has been edited by mdtony (edited 01-28-2002).]

An excuse is a reason without foundation. This was not the case. The paperwork WAS faulty. Whatever the pilots mindset BEFORE he discovered the bad paperwork (which is purely speculative, I might add), he was within reasonable limits to deny PCFA priviledges on the basis of the bad paperwork alone.

I just figured it out. An elite benefit should be the ability to review the manifest in the cabin you are seated. Or perhaps the gate agent should make a copy for the 1k's prior to departure.

Generally, UA's domestic inflight service in premium cabins seems better these days. But the NRT cabin crews who have replaced the SIN crews, while better than US-based crews, are still but a fraction of the SIN crews.