A comedian is angry after he was recently downgraded on an American Airlines flight from Hawaii to the mainland. While his frustration is justified, does he actually understand what happened?
Continue reading: Comedian Slams American Airlines After Pilot “Steals” First Class Seat
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Was in Hawaii with a friend and the day we were supposed to fly back, the friend got a call from Delta apologizing that due to whatever reason they couldn’t accommodate her in Delta One. They proactively rebooked her through ATL on a later flight *and* gave her a $2000 flight credit. Thats how you handle a situation like this, vs $500 to downgrade.
you have to imagine the GA didn't want to be honest because explaining this policy straightforwardly to an ordinary customer will very clearly have you/the airline sounding like real a**holes. i understand the reasoning in support of the policy, even if i don't find it compelling -- but at the end of the day, the airlines should take a hard look in the mirror and ask whether it is wise to maintain a policy that creates strong incentives to lie because the truth sounds markedly self-dealing and arrogant.
AA and Marriott, really are the worst. They should both attempt to at least reach frontier and Wyndham service levels!
@ Ben - yay, I'm famous!
Also, is there anything a premium passenger can do to avoid being bumped like this other than checking in ASAP right at 24 hours?
Wouldn’t they be entitled to a refund of the cost of the first class tickets? How can the airline justify keeping their money having not provided the service paid for?
With all due respect, I disagree. I think there is a way to honestly explain the rule. For example:
I'm very sorry, but we have pilots here in Honolulu that were urgently assigned to operate a flight out of Phoenix tomorrow morning. For the safety of that flight, and in accordance with the pilots' contract with AA, it is mandatory that they travel in first class seats. Unfortunately, based on criteria outside of my control, the computer system has selected your seats for this purpose. Again, I'm very sorry, and here's what we can do to make things right...
Re: digital nomad—
As Lucky wrote, both UA and DL also have agreed to seat deadheading pilots in premium cabin seats—displacing paying passengers if necessary. It’s not self-dealing or arrogant. Why? Because UA, DL and AA management *agreed* to this when the pilot labor contracts were signed. It’s just business.
How that is communicated to the customer is entirely up to those airline gate agents if it comes to that point. Or, as another poster said, how the airline reaches out to the customer to placate them. AA seems to do a poor job of this—DL and UA handle it with more grace.
Bottom line: nothing was “stolen” from this person. The benefit of flight crews flying in 1st class is a perk negotiated far away from HNL or any other airport gate. It is “paid for” somewhere else in that pilot contract with the company. Again, it’s just business.
I think it would be much better if the airline makes it very transparent on their selection process of who gets downgraded if something like this happens. Why was the couple the unlucky ones? Apparently they paid for their seats in first class vs being upgraded. Were they selected because they were a couple vs passengers flying alone? Were all the passengers left in first class paying for their tickets or some got upgraded because of status? Did passengers in first that were not downgraded paid higher fares than the couple? I think if AA made it very clear how they handle situations like this one can probably find ways to avoid it for example by maybe paying a higher fare or having status.
Passengers also have a contract with the airline - that’s what a ticket is. What you are saying is that the pilot contract supersedes the passenger contract.
While that may be legal, it isn’t ethical. The ticket was presumably purchased well before the pilot decided to deadhead. And yet the pilot takes precedence at the passenger’s expense.
No business in the world operates like that except for airlines. Why? Because it’s a terrible way to treat a paying customer.
Yes, it sucks. Presumably if he and his wife had no status with AA and all seats were paid for in cash they would be the first to be yanked out. Most airlines will put their deadheading pilots in first on long haul even if it means downgrading revenue passengers.
Now it seems as though the gate agent was trying to be coy and did not seem to want to look for alternative flights OR solicit offers for downgrades similar to being overbooked. That's not to say there would have been any takers, particularly if the amount offer wasn't generous.
Perhaps the gate agent thought they were Ma and Pa Kettle but he turned out to have a big microphone (and apparently will be back on Joe Rogan next week). Oops!
Sara Nelson approves of policies like this, and hope it continues under Isom's PHENOMENAL leadership!
Restitution and compensation seemed lower than it should be. Don't trust AA when buying premium seats or upgrades.
It wasn't a matter of the pilots "deciding to deadhead". They were on duty in uniform, not heading back on vacation. The bottom line is that passengers were left angry and disappointed. In usual form AA demonstrated a shitty, dismissive attitude to service recovery, which has only made things worse.
That it is American policy for deadheading pilots is irrelevant.
They should have asked for volunteers and auctioned off either the bump to coach or a bump to first class on another flight to the lowest bidder like they do when they overbook coach flights. Voluntary bumping makes for happy customers all the way around.
It wasn't the comedian's fault that American needed the two seats he had already paid for to reposition their pilots.
The pilot didn’t suddenly “decide” to deadhead. Pilots are *assigned* to deadhead on flights to and from other flights where they are literally flying the aircraft. You seem to not understand this very important distinction.
As for legal and/or ethical, the “Contract of Carriage” that each and every customer agrees to when purchasing a ticket does indeed allow the airline to do what they did here. Is it legal? Yes. Is it ethical? If you purchased the ticket agreeing to all points written in the Contract of Carriage, then it certainly is. Buyer beware.
Actually every business in the world with a labor agreement would operate the same way.
I was on a UA flight from IAD to LAX last week. They down-gauged the equipment from a 787-9 to a 787-8, which meant a significant reduction in Polaris seats, including wiping out the seat inventory behind doors number two, one seat of which was mine.
The gate agent was offering 50,000 UA points or a $1,000 travel voucher for business class passengers to downgrade to Y, PLUS a refund of the price of the ticket paid for the trip. They had absolutely zero problem getting takers, and I was reassigned into the front Polaris cabin without any hiccups (including to the bulkhead with extra legroom - YES!).
Wouldn’t it have been easier for American to have offered the same simple type of deal? Not suggesting the exact same one, but there are creative ways to do this without alienating customers. And I never thought I would be extolling the virtues of United Airlines, but here we are.
"American needs to reposition a crew, and per their contract, pilots are entitled to first class; that way the passengers don’t feel like they’re being “stolen” from"
No, the passengers are still being stolen from.
If you order a steak and the chef decides to eat it, can they serve you a burger instead (and discount the price difference)?
That’s basically what you are condoning here.
If you order a steak and the chef decides to eat it, can they serve you a burger instead (and discount the price difference)?
That’s basically what you are condoning here.
She was rebooked into D1 on another flight AND got a $2000 flight credit for the trouble. No refund for being accommodated on an alternate flight in the same class of service paid for.
The downgrade algorithm at AA is extremely complicated for passengers AND employees to understand. It takes into account your status, what fare class you ORIGINALLY booked (to account for upgrades), and what the fare actually cost. It’s an automated process and if you’re at the bottom of the list, that’s the end of it. On the very rare occasion I’ve dealt with passengers asking why they got downgraded, nobody has been able to explain it to them properly. The gate agent could have done WAY better, but that’s PHX America West for ya.
Profitable airlines can offer higher cash amounts to downgraded pax. AA can’t.
Great analysis of a sticky situation. This episode should be a training scenario for agents using your input.
It is "stolen" because it is taken away against the customer's wishes. It doesn't matter if airlines are bounded by contract to do anything. It also doesn't matter whether the airlines explained it properly because it is the airlines' problem, not my problem, so still doesn't explain to me why should my seat be taken away against my wishes. The only acceptable solution is keep upping the compensation until enough people takes it
Also, the refund is paltry. Airlines usually take the cash price of highest priced Y ticket at time of rebooking, which can be almost the price of J/F ticket one purchased
Just another reason I will never fly AA again (same "stuff" happened to me). I don't care what the contract says--they should have not only comped the tickets but ALSO paid them compensation. AA is the single worst airline in the world.
The bottom line is not how you described it.
The bottom line is that the airline could've sought volunteers and offered higher and higher compensation until finding someone. Instead, the airline chose to pursue a wholly unfair process, one far inferior to the other option at its disposal. For that, the airline deserves to be berated. And if that means exaggerating how poorly the airline behaved (just like the airline exaggerated overselling), then so be it.
It's less about how the airline's policy was "communicated" to the passengers and more about about how the policy was "implemented" with the passengers. The airline had the choice to seek volunteers and up the ante until they got two, but chose a much more predatory and unfair approach.
Is there small print that allows airlines to take seats while offering minimal compensation? Yes. Is it also ethically questionable when the airline chooses to trigger this clause while offering minimal compensation? Also yes.
Number one, I have never heard of this so-called comedian before.
Number two, how about he gets a real job, or better yet, put his money where his mouth is and start an airline since he believes he knows all intricacies of the airline business!
Here's some comedy for him: "Suck me" .
Surprised he didn’t “blast” them… man, I loathe these hyperbolic clickbait titles.
I would think that FC in the Hawaii > Phoenix route always sells out, so this must happen a lot. You would think the GA could have handled it better.
Breuer's youtube has 200k+ views already and he's going on tour. He'll do Gutfeld, Joe Rogan, and Adam Carolla.
Maybe it's true that there is no such thing as "bad" publicity and AA won't do a thing.
?? He was an SNL cast member in the '90s. Granted, now he's more of a "comedian's comedian" rather than a huge name in stand-up doing arena tours.
AA handled this poorly. But that what you get with an airline that does not care about the people that funds it. I know that the pilots got this in their contract, but it is a bad look for AA every time you board and aircraft with a pilot in a FC seat, unless the upgrade list is empty.
He's got every right to be angry. I see this as a form of IDB. AA should have tried to get colunteers, rather than arbitrarily picking some victims.
The problem is pilots shouldn't be anymore entitled to first class as a paying full fare customer.
Airlines need to work out a system here because someone paying for first should receive the product they paid for.
It's like purchasing an iPhone Pro Max, but then Apple says, we need this for our engineers, so you get an iPhone SE instead. It makes no sense.
Why isn't the 1st class ticket price refunded 100%? Being dumped back in coach is certainly worth thousands less than the 1st class ticket price?
Any reservation which allows situations like this should be spelled out in BOLD type. I don't know what the fine print says. The pilots had a right to the seats per their contract. Advance notice during reservation and as soon as the airlines know it should be transmitted immediately to the passengers. We had a similar, possibly more frustrating, on a Delta flight in 2012. My wife who was a million miler and me have never flown Delta again on a revenue ticket, to a loss to Delta of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Why aren't they being bumped to Premium economy/extra legroom - all these cases seem to go to Coach way in the back?
How can you say - nothing is stolen? 1st class may be $2500 while coach is at best $750. So one pays 2500 to sit in a 750 seat - seems like stealing to me, and only offering a 500 voucher??? not even close to being made whole.
would you accept that deal?
I would say the only scam / indignant part of this is that when an airline downgrades you, they pay you only a minimal difference of the fare between your F versus full fare Y -- as if you would've bought that expensive an economy ticket instead. They should have to pay you the difference to the lowest advance purchase that you could've purchased at the time.
Airline refunds in situations like this should be way more than 100%. It should be at least 300%. Sure it's great to get a refund but chances are you still need to fly. Anyone here buy a last minute ticket. It's freaking expensive and no doubt much more expensive than what you originally paid. 3x refund will do 2 things. One, likely compensate the customer since it's no fault of theirs other than choosing you. Two, airlines will be reluctant to cancel a passenger and maybe *gasp* do better at their own operating procedures.
@klsd I'm assuming premium was already full, and it's easier on the airline to just screw over 2 people than to screw over 4 with a double bump.
Oh I dunno... I guess just as happy as selecting a window seat then getting on board to discover there is no window that you are facing a wall.
How can it be a 100% refund when they did fly? It would obviously be the difference between what was purchased and the class flown.
Clearly the man failed to plan, as a consequence, his plan failed. More fool him for then announcing to the world how remiss he has been.
Some people will always look to others so that they can apportion blame to anyone but themselves. He and he alone is responsible for his own laziness as he could have demanded to be placed on another flight in the class he purchased.
Entitled much...
For the record, pilots don't "decide" to deadhead... The company assigns them to deadhead.
What this says to me is that pilots are saying, through their contracts, that the economy seating the airline is promoting as perfectly comfortable is a shitty product.
@justindev What a contemptuous arrogant prick you are. You totally avoid the FACTS and take a gratuitous swipe with zero logic. Go back to your Mamdani collectivist winter and revel in your ignorance.
As someone else so eloquently asked...."Jim who?"
That said, the AA gate agent is a miserable git who either can't, or can't be bothered to do his job explaining the situation and offering a workable solution. The poor pax seems to be under the mistaken impression that he would lose his 'thousands' and be offered only $500 in recompense. I'd be pissed off too if that was false impression I got from the idiot gate agent.
Really? I find you so ridiculous given that what I posted is pretty much what you stated verbatim of Gayle King, when she complained about UA's stated window seat was against a wall with no window in sight.
you people.... SMDH
Be careful when you choose your airline and class of service. It's on the pax, not the airline.
AA should have tried to find them a FC seat on another airline, UA or DL. They should be given a full refund and provided a First Class seat for free on another airline - that is what I would have insisted. Two of us once downgraded on a DCA-DFW flight - connecting to an Australia flight. We had custom meals and I the agent give us our FC meals delivered to us in coach. They had to hold to hold the flight to get 2 more FC meals. I think we got somewhere in the range of 10K miles. I would have insisted on a rebooking on another airline but we did not want to miss our international connection.
If AA has this in their contract with pilots then they should block 2 FC seats on ALL flights - and only release them at the last minute for upgrades.
You paid for being transported from A to B.
You left A and arrived at B.
Nothing was stolen.
Reach out to these folks for bump immunity.
Dan seems to always hit homerun with the race card.
Then there is Dao.
Would you pay 20% more for ALL your FC tickets so airlines can block 2 seats for their pilots.
And this is further proof, if needed that both the loony Yale Prof. and the very wise, sage and wonderful head of the FA union at AA, think Isom is doing an absolutely fantastic job at AA.
Again, why do people consciously fly AA?
Monkey see, monkey do. AA GA's see how Isom runs the company, so they emulate him. When Isom gets bumped from his over status job, they should fumigate the entire airline, to clean up this s**t.
Back in the stone age, when I was a member of the Executive Travel program with Eastern, I was about to be upgraded to FC on their 1011 flight from MIA-SEA, with a stop in ATL, then I wasn't. The GA explained why I was bumped. The flight crew had to be re-positioned to ATL.
At the time, it made sense to me. So, I said, thanks for explaining it. After all, I didn't pay for first. But what happened next was mind blowing, Off to the side of the counter was the cockpit crew. The Captain came over to me and apologized to me. I said I understand. He asked where I was flying to. Said SEA. He said he was only going to ATL. He handed me his boarding pass and took mine. I will never forget that.
Why would AA in the first place have to fly Pilots into a base (PHX) from Hawaii of all places, to operate a flight
It would be like Scandinavian Airlines deadheading Pilots from Gran Canaria to operate a flight out of Copenhagen…
Maybe what happened was the Pilots had just operated a flight from Phoenix to Honolulu and was now deadheading back to base, this would have left AA with plenty of time to come up with a better solution for the customer, but no that didn’t happen
The comedian was probably offered an FC seat on another flight. As noted in the text of the article, pilots are required to have the highest level on a deadhead. This contractual rule is usually only on oceanic or transcontinental flights.
Something like this happened to me in December but due to a plane change. Agent called me to the desk 20 mins before boarding. Said I was downgraded to coach and my husband was still in first class. I have a physical disability which is why we paid $$$ for our seats. I tried to explain this but they said they already changed my seat. Said I could get a $300 voucher. My seat was over $2k and I booked months in advance and all seats in first were available at that time. My husband said he would take my seat so I could stay up front. When I boarded the flight several first class passengers said the airline called them the night before about the plane change to see if they’d volunteer for a voucher which they told them no. My husband and I never received a call from AA, no missed calls or voicemails. Then a guy walking to coach said to the guy behind me that he gave up his seat last night for an $1100 voucher. So everyone received a courteously call the night before except for my husband and me. The woman who was moved to my original seat (I was in my husband’s seat) said she was given a complimentary upgrade. Then an agent came on the plane and said I can fill out a form for my voucher and she tried to hand me a pen. I have hand deformities and had to remind them once again I had a physical disability. It was a combo of embarrassing and frustrating. Once everyone was seated, the agent ran back onto the plane and told the woman next to me that she had to go back to coach and to let the man in 13A (my husband) know he’s back in first. If I had to guess what happened, the agent might have talked to a disability representative at the airport which I later found out they’re supposed to give you contact info of this person when changing a seat with someone who has a disability but they did not do that for me. After putting us through all that they forgot to tell us that we needed to re-check into our next layover flight because they changed our reservation to split us up. So we almost lost our seats on that flight. I understand there are rules and things happen but the lack of accountability, awareness and dignity from AA is why people feel violated. If you remove a paying customer from their seat, we have the technology to be able to issue a full refund right then and there. And it should be the price difference of coach and first class from time of booking not day of the flight. Of course a seat in coach will be near the cost of first class day of the flight, so yes, Jim Breuer is right, it is stealing.
TLDR: I fly Delta now.
Oh brother. Such a informative post that then concludes with a low-brow swipe. Have you ever considered that perpetuting such drivel is part of the problem? Move on, or retire already.
What a terrible take. Rather than side with the customer this article shills for the airlines.
Same happened to me on United out of Honolulu last month. I was told though that two pilots had to sleep because they were reassigned and need to take a tour right after they land or something... so they need to rest. So the agent was transparent with me but it was still so frustrating and unbelievable that 2 people just got booted in the back. But I find it so odd that you value your customers less than your employees comfort. I mean... just odd. The good news is, I did get a $2k refund for it.
As a person who works in aviation, there are legalities that have to be enforced. The FAA is strict with their rest and duty rules. If they are being DH to PHX, it could be a number of trasons, they picked up a shift, they were on reserve and someone called out sick, we have DH from PA to California before. It happens. The last thing anybody wants is a tired pilot. Huge safety issue. With that said, AA could have explained it better 100% and all this could have been avoided.
Clearly, you didn’t read the policy thoroughly. Nowhere does it state that deadheading pilots are entitled to remove paying First Class passengers. It says they can be placed in business class, and if there’s no availability there, then in economy. “No availability” implies those seats are already booked, not that confirmed passengers can simply be bumped. If they had blanket authority to remove anyone they wanted, there’d be no need to step down class by class. And logically, it would make more sense to bump a business-class passenger before a First Class passenger. This was a poor decision by the airline. If it truly didn’t matter who they removed, choosing a celebrity with a massive social media following was probably the worst decision they could ever make in this situation
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THEY STOLE HIS SEATS, there is no explanation that changes theft. What could have changed it would have been a complete refund to his original form of payment. Airlines always want to give you a credit of their choice, in the amount of their choice, as if after being treated that way you would ever want to fly them again.
They should have given him and option 1. Refund the both tickets to move them to another class for a free flight 2. Book them on the next flight that had the first class accommodations which they purchased in advance prior to AA decision to randomly dead head pilots. As American Airlines clearly gives deadheading pilots — those traveling as passengers to or from assignments — priority for first-class upgrades, frequently ahead of top loyalty members. They need to change their policies - and provide paying customers the product that they paid for in full. Pilots come second sorry. They could have sat in another class together - had AA cared to value the customer
Pilots come first, actually, especiallyto the scene of a crash. Just like you don't want someone inebriated to drive you, you don't want a pilot who's about to fall asleep or has already flown 12 hours today (or whatever) to fly another flight.
Airliners are corporations, and corporations have proven time and time again to not care about lives if they think they'll make more money by risking more lives. So the pilot's unions & FAA have stepped in to protect themselves, their passengers in general, and the public at large.
Fatigued pilots are top among those unfit to fly.
Not theft. It's buried in the fine print. And I'm sure they got the appropriate compensation for the downgrade. But at the risk of sounding offensive, I think it's a lot better for a couple passengers to get bumped instead of having hundreds of passengers stranded somewhere for hours or days.
If there's no business class, then they're entitled to first class seats. To place pilots in economy has far stricter limits. And even if there is seats in business class, they can be placed in either 1st or business regardless of what paying passengers need to be bumped.
The 2 employees restful comfort is a requirement for the safety of their next passengers. Also, the word you probably should have used is "trip", not tour. Most pilots are scheduled to work for a few days in a row flying all over the country (or world). Say their crewbase is NYC, they may fly NYC-Miami-LA-Vegas-Dallas-Boston-NYC. Often they don't start or finish in NYC and thus deadhead (fly as passengers) back to their assigned crew base (or opt to fly somewhere else, most often to their family home as many pilots "commute" across the country, living in say Oregon but commuting to and from NYC once a week).
The customer is better served with their pilots flying safely rather than passengers flying more comfortably. Fatigued pilots are top among those unfit to fly.
Or maybe the pilots were taking a premium leg or an entire premium trip. Or the crewbase didn't have any reserve pilots available (their reserves were sick, already elsewhere, or were time limited) so they pulled available pilots from elsewhere.
Fatigued pilots are unfit to fly.
It's part of what pilots call the PAVE checklist. Pilot factors, first and foremost. Then the Aircraft, enVironment, & External pressures.
Since airliners are corporations putting profits first, the pilot's union (and FAA) must work to improve safety. Restrictive union contracts and additional regulations proved necessary as we're not talking about a taxi driver risking a handful of people getting injured or killed. Instead, it's fatigued pilots risking hundreds, losing an expensive aircraft, risking significant property damage, and years of lawsuits for victims...
So do you further delay or cancel a flight affecting hundreds of people elsewhere or do you bump 1 or 2 passengers to get rested pilots where they're needed?
Couple things. They should have PAID to put these folks in first class on another flight OR simply refunded the entire ticket. Certainly they are required by law to refund the difference between coach and first class (AT THE TIME OF THE PURCHASE) which is absolutley more than $200 a ticket. So that is a big load of nonsense. It's a breach of contract or possibly theft. So what I should have happened is THE TRUTH and a refund AND an offer to put them up in a hotel AND the premium econonmy option for the next night. American is really the pits of late. And, while it can happen on any airline, American is particularly awful IMO.
This is NOT a misunderstanding. The contract between the airline and the pilots is not Breuer's problem. That is an airline vs union problem. I pay 100.00 for a tomahawk steak at a Steakhouse, but out comes a sirloin burger and i'm told the steakhouse has a contract with cook's union, and the cook wants the tomahawk??? gtfo