jumpseating back to the US

djh1007

djh1007

Flying Squirrel Trainee
Is it not possible to jumpseat back to the US from abroad?

I know that as an offline pilot, I cannot sit up front,but only fly standby for a seat in the back.

Last week I jumpseated to SCL on Delta without any problems. I tried, unsuccesfuly, to list for a jumpseat on DL and AA last night. The customer service agents tried to list me, but the computer was telling me that my airline, YV, does not have a jumpseat agreement with them, and I cannot jumpseat internationally.


Is this true? Why was I able to jump down here then?
 
Delta should have been ok.

American has an "international jumpseat" list that is separate from their normal one. I'd guess Mesa isn't on it as they don't fly international at all.
 
Always amazes me how cheap pilots can be going international. Coming back, you have to pay the taxes anyway. So just buy a freakin ZED and take out all headaches/worries. If there's a seat available, the ZED will give it to you. So now you got denied on Delta and have to spend the extra night in whatever foreign city? While a ZED from Europe to the US would have been 80-ish?

Pilots :rolleyes:
 
Cherokee_Cruiser said:
Always amazes me how cheap pilots can be going international. Coming back, you have to pay the taxes anyway. So just buy a freakin ZED and take out all headaches/worries. If there's a seat available, the ZED will give it to you. So now you got denied on Delta and have to spend the extra night in whatever foreign city? While a ZED from Europe to the US would have been 80-ish?

Pilots :rolleyes:
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Ummmm, not really.
I was bumped from 100% of DL flights leaving AMS last New Years. (DTW, MSP, ATL, JFK, etc..). I ended up on the last KLM flight, and seat because I bought a zed fare. There was an Etheopean FA who waited 2 days to get to JFK. Buying a ZED first hand wouldn't have solved me getting bumped.

In retrospect I should have stayed in AMS for NYE.

I think this fall AA is giving NK pilots intl jumpseat privileges.
 
Nark said:
Ummmm, not really.
I was bumped from 100% of DL flights leaving AMS last New Years. (DTW, MSP, ATL, JFK, etc..). I ended up on the last KLM flight, and seat because I bought a zed fare. There was an Etheopean FA who waited 2 days to get to JFK. Buying a ZED first hand wouldn't have solved me getting bumped.

In retrospect I should have stayed in AMS for NYE.

I think this fall AA is giving NK pilots intl jumpseat privileges.
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Ok, New Years is a problem non-reving because it's high demand.

You misunderstood the rest. International jumpseating you cannot sit in the flight deck (at least for US carriers). Same thing for ZED. You get a seat in the cabin if one is available. According to the OP, he got screwed because the agents could not or did not process a jumpseater the proper way, despite Mesa having a JS agreement with Delta. Theoretically as long as he was processed, he could have gotten a cabin seat. If he had a ZED for this flight, the gate agents would not have had any hurdles and he would have gotten the seat.

ZED isn't confirmed, so yes there has to be a seat available. Without it you can still be bumped. But at least you won't be bumped because the foreign city doesn't know jumpseating, doesn't know how to list a jumpseater, doesn't know how to collect taxes, and/or refuses to do it list you in the first place.
 
Well, I haven't worked here for 6 months, so I'm not eligible for ZED fares. Thanks for the helpful response.

Any idea why I was able to jumpseat out of the US in DL to Chile, but was told I was not able to coming back?
 
BobDDuck said:
Delta should have been ok.

American has an "international jumpseat" list that is separate from their normal one. I'd guess Mesa isn't on it as they don't fly international at all.
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We do fly internationally, supporting AA to Mexico.
 
Zondaracer said:
American typically doesn't allow offline jumpseat listing for international flights.
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I figured it was something like this, thanks.

It was a frustrating night, last night. I was at the airport when a 8.3 earthquake struck. Fortunately, there was not much damage in Santiago, and none at the airport.

Last night, I was unable to access UA's non rev website to create a listing, so I was stuck trying to list for a jumpseat.
 
djh1007 said:
Well, I haven't worked here for 6 months, so I'm not eligible for ZED fares. Thanks for the helpful response.

Any idea why I was able to jumpseat out of the US in DL to Chile, but was told I was not able to coming back?
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Travelling less than 6 months, ok so you are new to the industry? Personally, I wouldn't ravel internationally until I could hold ZEDs. Anyway, to answer your question, the simplest answer is because in the USA, everyone knows what jumpseating is. When you go international, all gloves are off. I know at AMS that Delta has a specific helpdesk for non-revs and they deal solely for non-revs/jumpseaters trying to travel. They took great care of me. This kinda thing is probably also true for other first world country large cities, where at least they know (somewhat) what jumpseating is. But Chile? Seriously, I'm not surprised you had trouble jumpseating out of there. It's Chile, not America. The concept of "jumpseating" just isn't the same everywhere.
 
I'm new to 121 flying, yes. I have some time off before sims, so I decided to make the most of it.

I've jumpseated around the country and non revved around the world with zero problems before last night.

So I guess my number was up, I couldn't escape completely hassle-free.
 
djh1007 said:
I'm new to 121 flying, yes. I have some time off before sims, so I decided to make the most of it.

I've jumpseated around the country and non revved around the world with zero problems before last night.

So I guess my number was up, I couldn't escape completely hassle-free.
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Ok, sounds good. Just my honest IMO I wouldn't try the international back to America leg without having a ZED backup to jumpseating.

Another big city that is great for jumpseating from what I hear is SYD on United. Apparently the magic word is "OMC" which is something like observer crew member and they know exactly how to process, list you, and collect taxes. Headahce free, from what I hear. So as long as there is a seat, of course. Buddy of mine at 9E could free business class once on the plane.
 
Nark said:
Ummmm, not really.
I was bumped from 100% of DL flights leaving AMS last New Years. (DTW, MSP, ATL, JFK, etc..). I ended up on the last KLM flight, and seat because I bought a zed fare. There was an Etheopean FA who waited 2 days to get to JFK. Buying a ZED first hand wouldn't have solved me getting bumped.

In retrospect I should have stayed in AMS for NYE.

I think this fall AA is giving NK pilots intl jumpseat privileges.
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AMS is rough because it's a hub, just like CDG and there are a lot of factors that make those two airports a pain in the ass to get out of.

Air France, KLM and Delta pretty much operate like a single entity. So when a passenger is going to travel from Hamburg to CDG to DFW on Air France and there's a travel interruption on one of the legs, he would be rerouted Hamburg to Amsterdam to DTW to DFW fairly quickly because it's all the same system.

KLM and AF don't use "Deltamatic" and use their own legacy system so load and standby information is virtually useless for the SouthernJet TravelNet.
 
Derg said:
AMS is rough because it's a hub, just like CDG and there are a lot of factors that make those two airports a pain in the ass to get out of.

Air France, KLM and Delta pretty much operate like a single entity. So when a passenger is going to travel from Hamburg to CDG to DFW on Air France and there's a travel interruption on one of the legs, he would be rerouted Hamburg to Amsterdam to DTW to DFW fairly quickly because it's all the same system.

KLM and AF don't use "Deltamatic" and use their own legacy system so load and standby information is virtually useless for the SouthernJet TravelNet.
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I made a 15 minute friend of a pilots wife while waiting. She was assigned a seat in biz class on her husbands flight back to the U.S. The GA came on and kicked her off because of some sort of magic between the Alliances.
I can only imagine how frustrating it may have been for her.

I always had great luck leaving the U.S. on SouthernJets, but coming back is almost always a head shaker... However, you get what you pay for!
 
Nark said:
I made a 15 minute friend of a pilots wife while waiting. She was assigned a seat in biz class on her husbands flight back to the U.S. The GA came on and kicked her off because of some sort of magic between the Alliances.
I can only imagine how frustrating it may have been for her.

I always had great luck leaving the U.S. on SouthernJets, but coming back is almost always a head shaker... However, you get what you pay for!
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That blows.

Avoid AMS and CDG. Yeah, I know there are some who will hop on and say, "I've neeeeeeeeeeever had problems during my one time through there" and that's cool, but having flown through both airports for over a decade, it can be a mess because of the codeshare. Love Paris and Amsterdam? Go to BRU and TGV over. Otherwise you're at the mercy of every European, African and Middle Eastern high-value distressed passenger.
 
djh1007 said:
We do fly internationally, supporting AA to Mexico.
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Mexico, Canada and the Caribbean aren't "international" enough when dealing with a speciAAl airline. Hell, we fly to Japan, China, Korea, Australia and New Zealand and just were able to get on their international jumpseat list last month.

The Delta jumpseat should have worked. For whatever reason they couldn't find you under YV. Ask your ALPA jumpseat committee reps what you could have done differently. Next time. I'm sure they have seen this issue before.
 
Thanks for all the answers. I'm still learning how this whole airline pilot thing works!

I've been on this site under this username, and an older one for over 10 years. It's been with me for
every stage of my career, and an invaluable source of information!
 
I'm not sure if the U.Sair side of the house has the same js policies integrated, but their AMS-PHL flts are often wide open for future reference, $48 in taxes.
 
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