SFnFlaGuy

What an interesting subject. I'd like to go ahead and give my own experiences when I worked at UA a couple of years ago.

First of all, dead-heading pilots have it in their contract to book full F seats.

Personell travelling on company business can book a full C seat on a three cabin, and are only allowed to book Y class on a two cabin.

Since I'm assuming that this is only a two cabin, I would think that the alleged employee as a pilot or first officer. That's the only situation that this could have happened in.

In addition, all the employees, both FA's and gate agents KNOW who is non rev and who are the rev passengers. Our paperwork that is printed before flight closeout lists this all out.

Also, FA's DO NOT have the authority to do upgrades. All upgrades have to be done by the gate agent prior to departure. If F class is not full after the A/C door is closed, the FA's can, theoretically, can do their own "unauthorized" upgrades. But since the F class was full on this flight, everyone who deserved an upgrade got it.

And finally, instead of making any assumptions, go and ask the person....are you an employee? If it's really killing you seeing them sit in FC, might as well clear up the situation so you don't end up stewing in your own juice due to the situation.

Overall, you can assume all you like, but you can't make accurate assumptions simply based on how a person acts/dressed etc. There is a strong possibility that your assumption was wrong and it was actually a totally different situation.



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SFnFlaGuy

mdtony

Uh, because it's in their contract if they're a pilot? And from what other people said, only pilots would be sitting in first.

[This message has been edited by mdtony (edited 04-26-2002).]

unixone

What really gets me is there always seems
to be a couple of guys, sometimes a woman as
well who ace me out of my 1K benefits. They
get to board first, get the best seats and
I'm stuck in F or worst E+.

Those pilots can be a real pain sometimes.
Do you really think they should allow
employees in 0A and 0B? Both are window
seats, the bathroom is nice and close and
they chat on the radio the whole flight.
I'm changing to Air Congo where I can get
seat 0A and 0B. Or maybe the Russian space
program, I hear you give them enough money
and you fly the **** rocket as well.


After all, I paid my hard earned money for
that cheap economy ticket and I deserve
that seat up front. I always buy my cheap
economy ticket from UA so they owe me.

Spiff

You've got a deal!!!

Babu

Of course it's in their contract. So are many other perks. But maybe, as Spiff said, the argument is getting tired. As a policy issue, why is it necessary they get FC over Premiers? Do pilots on other carriers get this same perk? On CO, for example, I've seen them in the back.

SFO 1K

I guess the fact that it's getting tired is becausse we all keep talking about it. The contract provision isn't going away because we talk about it so much. I think it's time to come up with something new to discuss.

jwalkabout

I have had the experience of employees in domestic FC one was a pilot and the other was a corporate suit. I must admit I learned alot about UA in talking with them.
Regardlees of whether you defend employees flying in FC over passengers or not, I think alot can be said about the quality of the coach class product if the airlines own employees have it in their contracts that they will not fly coach. Something to think about huh?

Spiff

My point is: if there's no airline, then contractual "rights" to sit in FC over upgraded (or even paying ) passengers is pretty much moot. At this stage of the game, one of the "concessions" that UA employees should consider is giving back FC seats to the passengers before the employees find themselves unemployed. This is not to say that the current employees are not doing a good job, but if you want to keep the pax coming back in these troubled times with so many other cuts, you have to do something.

mdtony

Yeah, it is. Why? Because a contractual obligation is a contractual obligation, and if you don't like it, when you run UAL, you can change it. Until then, though, UAL has to live up to its contractual obligations, so there is no point in discussing it.

mdtony

Unfortunately, this attitude seems to be pretty prevalent. And it's a shame.

mdtony

Actually, then, if they want to enhance revenue, they should not allow ANY upgrades. If you force folks to actually cough up money for first class, then you'll make more money on every flight.

Let's see...which would return more revenue? The guy who simply HAS to sit in first, who coughs up $4,000 for it? Or the guy who insists on getting upgraded after he paid $250 for a flight and has some e-upgrades?

In any case, I highly doubt that putting pilots in first is a cause of UAL losing money.

B747-437B

Wow. I wonder why UAL didn't think of that before.

You would be surprised by the costs involved with providing NRSA travel benefits to airline employees and how those costs are escalating now that the airlines are eating the security charges for the NRSAs.

Bear96

B747,

Pilots are not contractually put in F when they are travelling NRSA-- only when they are travelling positive space, or NRPS-BP1 (i.e., deadheading or travelling to/from required training). You seem to be confusing two different issues (or quite possibly I am misunderstanding you). The average security charge per person is the same whether the passenger (or non-rev employee) ultimately gets Y, or F, or doesn't get on the flight at all because there is no space available. And I would suspect that these security costs are similar for all airlines, from UA to WN.

Also-- tp Spiff-- even pilots travelling positive space do not get F over paying revenue F passengers. In the case of a deadheading pilot, if there is an F seat available at the time the booking is made, the pilot can be booked in F. A revenue F passenger who already has a seat in the F cabin will not be downgraded to accomodate a deadheading pilot.

This is just to state a few facts about the UAL employee travel policy. I won't even get into some of the outrageous and unproven allegations and assumptions that have been made at the beginning of, and throughout, this thread. It's just no use-- some people here will believe whatever they want to believe about "Employee Class," regardless of the facts.

SFnFlaGuy

Bravo! I'm very glad to see that someone actually knows the facts out there! I wasn't astute enough to state those obvious facts. All the way from people who assume they deserve F class even when travelling on a cheap excursion fare to those passengers who believe that any crew that's travelling on the flights are travelling for pleasure only.

In addition to this, I think that the travel benefits being provided to airline employees are well deserved by them. Why else would they work for almost no money and have to deal with delays, difficult passengers, and all the other crap that they have to deal with?

Also, keep in mind that employees travelling for pleasure only travel on standby. They are never confirmed and are not placed in a higher priority than revenue passengers.

If a flight is full in Y, and no one else is on the revenue upgrade list, I think its just fair that employees get the vacant seats in FC. It's their benefit they deserve it.



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SFnFlaGuy

auh2o

"After all, I paid my hard earned money for
that cheap economy ticket and I deserve
that seat up front. I always buy my cheap
economy ticket from UA so they owe me."

I will not comment on the rest of this thread but I am finding that more and more of bashing those of us who do feel that "UA owes me". In the last 10 days I have spent more than $7000 on domestic tickets (Y/B fares at $2200+ a pop). For the $100K in revenue I generate for UA, every now and then, I do feel that they "owe me". Man... $2200 for a coach ticket from LAX-ORD.