Deadheading...would you take the jumpseat?

[drunkenbeagle]

So, I suppose that the oft-repeated advice given to people trying to go places on S-4/buddy/etc. passes should be repeated to people trying to redeem too. "If you absolutely have to be there, buy a ticket."

No, when you do get a seat, it is a confirmed seat, well in advance.

The problem is the availability of seats, typically they won't be available unless the airline is reasonably certain they won't be able to sell every seat on the flight. And even then, the routing can be terrible.

I did manage to get two confirmed seats to NJC this year for 50,000miles, $10 out of pocket. No complaints there.

 

[Polymox]

Um, no. Not sure where you're getting your numbers, but it isn't from the DOT. I was just a bit off, but the real DOT number is around 4 per 100,000 for the major carriers. I think you're including voluntary denied boardings in order to get at your numbers, and those clearly aren't the issue here.



Actually, the opposite is true. Denied boardings peaked in the '98-'01 timeframe, and we're down about 40% from that peak now.



Actually, the yield management software adjusts continually, updating itself with every day's data that goes by. Far from old data.



Of course they aren't competing based upon service. The service is practically indistinguishable on domestic routes, unless you're looking for a business class seat. Delta matches the bargain basement fare that JetBlue offers, and competes based upon the frequent flying program. By being a member of the program and having the SkyMiles credit card, frequent flyers get a discount on Delta by not having to pay the checked bag fees. Delta matches the fare, but cuts the ancillary fee, and therefore undercuts JetBlue. In exchange for the price cut, Delta gets a loyal customer because of the SkyMiles program that JetBlue is incapable of matching with their route network.

The bag is already free for everyone on jetBlue, you are wrong there. I do agree with you that prior to deregulation competition was almost entirely with service.

 

[kellwolf]

Of course they aren't competing based upon service. The service is practically indistinguishable on domestic routes, unless you're looking for a business class seat. Delta matches the bargain basement fare that JetBlue offers, and competes based upon the frequent flying program. By being a member of the program and having the SkyMiles credit card, frequent flyers get a discount on Delta by not having to pay the checked bag fees. Delta matches the fare, but cuts the ancillary fee, and therefore undercuts JetBlue. In exchange for the price cut, Delta gets a loyal customer because of the SkyMiles program that JetBlue is incapable of matching with their route network.

I want what you're smoking, man. Have you BEEN on jetBlue? Delta has next to no in-flight entertainment. What they do have is hit or miss depending on which airframe and what fleet it is. Some have TVs. Some don't. You get not even a whole Coke and either peanuts, cookies or pretzels. They're shrinking the lav so they can squeeze even more seats into an already cramped coach cabin. jetBlue has TVs in every seat, a WHOLE lot more free snack choices, they don't get stingy on the drinks and more leg room in every seat. Yes, the SkyMiles program gives you a better value, but to say that the sevice between the two is "indistinguishable on domestic routes" is no where near correct. You sure you're not letting your bias towards non-union carriers show through?

As for the stats on denied boarding, that came from the same Reuters article I linked before. Here's the text from it:

The study highlighted the growing incidences of "bumping,"
when a passenger shows up at the airport and finds out his seat
has been sold to someone else. The number of flyers subject to
"involuntary denied boarding," rose about 17 percent to nearly
one in every 10,000. Passengers are bumped when a flight is over
booked and the airline has to move them to a different flight.
The report is based on data collected by the DOT.

Here's another article from ABC:

Involuntary Denied Boarding:
Best: JetBlue. Just 0.01 per 10,000 passengers in 2012 were denied boarding. This was consistent with denied boarding in 2011.
Worst: SkyWest Airlines: 2.32 per 10,000 passengers in 2012, a dramatic increase compared to 2011, when the rate was 0.68.
quote]

Now, it doesn't say if SkyWest was operating Delta or United, but it's likely combined for both. Personally, I think it's wrong for them to be charged with it since Delta/United/Whoever is the one making the bookings and Skywest has little control over that. Either way, you can see both articles reference in the 10,000 numbers, not 100,000.

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

I want what you're smoking, man. Have you BEEN on jetBlue?

Nope. I work for a SWA subsidiary, and I've never even been on SWA. I won't ride an airline if they don't have business class. I'm actually buying a business class ticket out to NJC this year. I'm tired of cramped up coach seats, regardless of the airline.

Delta has next to no in-flight entertainment.

Depends on the airplane. And they have in-flight WiFi in every plane, which is really what I care about.

You get not even a whole Coke and either peanuts, cookies or pretzels.

If you want the whole Coke, all you have to do is ask. Delta stews are usually pretty friendly and don't give you any attitude. As far as food, Delta is great. Lots of good stuff available for purchase. The breakfast sandwich they have on raisin bread is pure awesome.

They're shrinking the lav so they can squeeze even more seats into an already cramped coach cabin.

Actually, they're adding Economy Comfort Class, which I rode in a few weeks ago. A few rows of seats all have extra legroom, and I think the seats had extra padding also. Much improved, although still not business class.

You sure you're not letting your bias towards non-union carriers show through?

Nah, I'm so confident that JetBlue will be organized in short order that I don't even really think of you as a non-union carrier anymore, to be honest. It's just a matter of going through the motions at this point.

As for the stats on denied boarding, that came from the same Reuters article I linked before

Incorrect info. Read the info directly from the DOT. Reuters must have been including the voluntary numbers.

 

[PeanuckleCRJ]

kell- Delta isn't shrinking the lav, we are just the first to have Boeings new lav design for the 737 be delivered. The size of the lav apparent to you remains the same... just efficiencies have been found elsewhere. So sayeth Boeing, for what that's worth.

kudos to PCL showing the widget love.

 

[PeanuckleCRJ]

FWIW, I have rode the jumpseat when I've had positive space in the back in order to get revenue pax on... ONLY after verifying that there were no other jumpseaters wanting to get on the flight. The jumpseat on most fleets sure beats getting stuck in a middle seat in row 45, too.

 

[Rocketman99]

Amen to that. I would choose the jumpseat over a middle seat on any plane any day.

 

[Autothrust Blue]

Amen to that. I would choose the jumpseat over a middle seat on any plane any day.

I recently rode home in the jumpseat during spring break...there was a seat available in back, between two customers of size. Yup. JUMP.

(space available, not NRPS)

 

[BobDDuck]

I recently rode home in the jumpseat during spring break...there was a seat available in back, between two customers of size. Yup. JUMP.

(space available, not NRPS)

Be careful about doing that. Often times, FOMs prohibit an off line (CASS approved) pilot from sitting in the jumpseat if there is an open seat in the back.

 

[Autothrust Blue]

Be careful about doing that. Often times, FOMs prohibit an off line (CASS approved) pilot from sitting in the jumpseat if there is an open seat in the back.

Yeah. I understand it, I'd prefer to have that be "Captain's discretion." (Which, were I writing the rules, it would be.)

 

[kellwolf]

Nope. I work for a SWA subsidiary, and I've never even been on SWA. I won't ride an airline if they don't have business class. I'm actually buying a business class ticket out to NJC this year. I'm tired of cramped up coach seats, regardless of the airline.

I don't see how you can make the claim that their the same if you haven't been on them. Seat pitch on a Delta First Class seat on the A320 (there apparently aren't any Business Elite ones) is 36.0. Economy Comfort is 34.0. On a jetBlue Airbus, the Even More Space seats are pitched at 38.0 and the normal coach seats are pitched at 34.0. So, a jetBlue Airbus is mostly Economy Comfort (which you already said you liked) but 0.6 wider, and the EMS seats are more pitch than a First Class seat on Delta. Granted, the First Class seats are wider, but they cost a bit more than $25 extra. So, I'd say at least give it a try before you completely write it off just because it's coach, especially the EMS seats.

Depends on the airplane. And they have in-flight WiFi in every plane, which is really what I care about.

I'll give you the wifi for now. We're adding it (slowly). Even better, we're not charging extra for the basic service.

If you want the whole Coke, all you have to do is ask. Delta stews are usually pretty friendly and don't give you any attitude. As far as food, Delta is great. Lots of good stuff available for purchase. The breakfast sandwich they have on raisin bread is pure awesome.

I highlighted the important term there. And in all the times I've DHed on Delta or commuted or jumpseated, I haven't seen this magical breakfast sandwhich offered. It sounds good, though.

Incorrect info. Read the info directly from the DOT. Reuters must have been including the voluntary numbers.

Straight from the DOT chart (which is INVOUNTARY denied boardings by 10,000 passengers), the numbers are exactly what Reuters and ABC reported. Skywest is 2.82 per 10,000 (and it IS 10,000 not 10,000 and it specifically says INVOLUNTARY denied boarding) at the bottom. The total average is 1.00 per 10,000 in Oct-Dec 2012. Ther average a year prior was 0.65 per 10,000. Sorry, man, but that's it, in black and white on the DOT's website.

http://www.dot.gov/sites/dot.dev/files/docs/2013AprilATCR.pdf

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

I don't see how you can make the claim that their the same if you haven't been on them.

Because it doesn't exactly take a whole lot of research to figure out what an airline offers in the way of service. Unless you're serving hot meals or ice cream sundaes like the good old days, then your service is substantially the same.

I highlighted the important term there. And in all the times I've DHed on Delta or commuted or jumpseated, I haven't seen this magical breakfast sandwhich offered. It sounds good, though.

Might just be on certain flights. Not sure. I've always gotten it going west to places like Vegas, though.

Straight from the DOT chart (which is INVOUNTARY denied boardings by 10,000 passengers), the numbers are exactly what Reuters and ABC reported. Skywest is 2.82 per 10,000 (and it IS 10,000 not 10,000 and it specifically says INVOLUNTARY denied boarding) at the bottom. The total average is 1.00 per 10,000 in Oct-Dec 2012. Ther average a year prior was 0.65 per 10,000. Sorry, man, but that's it, in black and white on the DOT's website.

http://www.dot.gov/sites/dot.dev/files/docs/2013AprilATCR.pdf

This link is coming up dead for me for some reason.

 

[Autothrust Blue]

"No first class, no premium economy, that's right, here at BrandX we've no class at all!"

 

[kellwolf]

Because it doesn't exactly take a whole lot of research to figure out what an airline offers in the way of service. Unless you're serving hot meals or ice cream sundaes like the good old days, then your service is substantially the same.

I guess "service" to me is also about the people as well as the product. You've got a very, very narrow view of what defines service, I guess. Me? I'm the guy that will drive out of my way to go to a business that has a better product and friendlier staff. Being involved in small business, I thought you might have a better view of it. You're essentially saying "All lawn service companies are the same" or any other kind of product.

This link is coming up dead for me for some reason.

Do you have Adobe installed? It's a link to a PDF and works just fine for me. Basically, it's the report right off the DOT's website. If I could cut and paste, I would, and I'm too lazy to type it all out.

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

I guess "service" to me is also about the people as well as the product.

It is. But I simply don't believe that your people are any better than Delta's or anyone else's. I've seen first hand that SWA's are a lot worse than most, despite the hype, in fact.

Do you have Adobe installed? It's a link to a PDF and works just fine for me. Basically, it's the report right off the DOT's website. If I could cut and paste, I would, and I'm too lazy to type it all out.

Got it to work now. The site must have just been down last night. Two things:

1. You're including carriers like Mesa, Skywest, and Expressjet. I'm looking at major carriers.

2. The numbers in that report are for the last two quarters, not for the entire year. As you can see, even for those two quarters, the number varied considerably. First Q this year was almost double last Q last year. Overall, for an entire year, the numbers for the major carriers stay at about 4 per 100,000.

 

[kellwolf]

Got it to work now. The site must have just been down last night. Two things:

1. You're including carriers like Mesa, Skywest, and Expressjet. I'm looking at major carriers.

Sigh. Who books the flights? Hint: it's not the regionals. The majors are responsible for the bookings and over bookings. NOT Mesa, Skywest and ExpressJet. I'm pretty sure Delta knows how many seats are on a CRJ. On RARE occasions, you can put the overbookings on a regional partner if a seat is inop or there's a swap from a -700 to a -200 or something similar. Anything other than that, and it's on the people selling the tickets.

2. The numbers in that report are for the last two quarters, not for the entire year. As you can see, even for those two quarters, the number varied considerably. First Q this year was almost double last Q last year. Overall, for an entire year, the numbers for the major carriers stay at about 4 per 100,000.

I think at this point, if I gave you stats and figures that said the sky was blue you'd say it was green, I give. You win.

 

[PeanuckleCRJ]

The bluejuice is strong with this one...

 

[derg]

Sigh. Who books the flights? Hint: it's not the regionals. The majors are responsible for the bookings and over bookings. NOT Mesa, Skywest and ExpressJet. I'm pretty sure Delta knows how many seats are on a CRJ. On RARE occasions, you can put the overbookings on a regional partner if a seat is inop or there's a swap from a -700 to a -200 or something similar. Anything other than that, and it's on the people selling the tickets.



I think at this point, if I gave you stats and figures that said the sky was blue you'd say it was green, I give. You win.

Weeeeeeell, this is where we diverge.

WHenever I've ridden DCI, I've only been 50/50 for the flight being cancelled. When I ride mainline, the flights are rarely cancelled.

 

[BobDDuck]

WHenever I've ridden DCI, I've only been 50/50 for the flight being cancelled. When I ride mainline, the flights are rarely cancelled.

Right, because when the weather goes to crap and TMU starts handing out slot times, who do you think is going to get canceled and who do you think is going to get a slot?

True story... About 2 years ago I was doing BNA-PHL and the weather was really bad (well, bad enough to out new York into SWAP, which actually doesn't mean it was that bad). Anyhow, we ended up with a 3 hour EDCT time, which was going to put us over our duty time for the day and cause the flight to cancel. I was telling this to the gate agent when a mainline, commuting captain came over. I told him what was up and he told me he'd make a phone call. 15 minutes later we had a flow time of 20 minutes from then, and we were off to PHL.

Turns out the guy was working the TLV flight that night and was the only qualified captain available to work the flight. He called his OCC who called ATC and requested that they trade our slot for an earlier one. I have no idea who got hosed, but somewhere, somebody ended up waiting for a while.

I'll totally give you the periodic MX and crew caused cancelations, but the vast majority of canceled flights at a regional are caused by request from the mainline client during weather events.

 

[jtrain609]

Weeeeeeell, this is where we diverge.

WHenever I've ridden DCI, I've only been 50/50 for the flight being cancelled. When I ride mainline, the flights are rarely cancelled.

Jimmy is right, this happens all the time with us. When there are already a finite number of slots going into X mega huge hub, and those get reduced further, somebody has to get cancelled.

And frankly, it makes sense that we're the ones that get cancelled first. We carry the fewest number of people, and unless there is a compelling reason, we'll either be made to take the delay, or take the cancellation. Like Jimmy, I also had a situation where we had a slot provided to us when we originally were going to time out at the out station. Turns out that almost our entire aircraft was a tour group going to somewhere in Europe, so the hub coordinator found us a slot, worked with our dispatcher, and even parked us next to their outbound plane so THAT flight wouldn't have to take a delay.