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do flight officers have the authority to upgrade pax to business/first class
At most airlines do flight officers have the authority to upgrade passengers to business or first class or does management try to make this an isse too?
shon07, different airlines have different rules for this kind of thing.
In our company it works as follows: Nobody else than ground staff can officially up-grade a passenger. If pilots want to have anybody upgraded, they confer with the purser. If the question is put politely and the purser isn't a powermad and strictly by the book type, the person in question then gets upgraded on board the aircraft. If an FA wants to upgrade anyone, same goes. Upgrade requests from FA's usually get made to solve a problem in another class, i.e. parents and kids not sitting together, a very overweight pax, someone sitting next to a very smelly pax or someone who is extremely distraught and needs some peace and quiet. Some Pursers up-grade easily, others are dead set against it. Hope this helps a bit.
Tech Crew I believe is a fairly standard world wide expression for the pilots.
shon7
I think that Flaps has pretty well covered it, though I wouldn't think too many F/Os or S/Os would ask without first running it past the Captain. Mainly because if another member of the crew were to take issue with someone being upgraded, for whatever reason, the Captain might later get a please explain, thus s/he should be included in the decision process..
Over the years have upgraded a few pax as a courtesy, mainly because economy was oversold. However, this is normally done by the ground staff. It is ALWAYS a good idea to make SURE that the upgraded pax are well behaved and presentable, otherwise you pi@@ off the high-roller punters, which is NOT good. OTOH, have had the pleasure of tossing OFF a few who thought they were "the cream of the crop" but too cheap to actually purchase a F/C ticket. This was several years ago, now nearly always done by the above mentioned ground staff.
Yup, well behaved and properly dressed is a valid point and after so many years flying too blindingly obvious for me to even think of it. Blinkers are tricky, aren't they? Thanks for bringing that one up 411A. Annoying the people who pay a fortune for sitting in that particular class is commercially pretty stupid indeed.
Oh and shon7, you're welcome...........................
Dress code for short haul upgrades is one thing but I think on long and medium hauls it is more likely to make you stand out as nonrev, simply because most if not all the paying punters are travelling in their casual clothes. There's nothing wrong with a neat pair of jeans, presentable shirt and a clean pair of trainers. It's time airlines became a little more realistic with dress code vis-a-vis upgrading and staff travel. I'd still say no to torn jeans, shorts and loud t-shirts etc.
Smoketrails - Don't quite agree. Correct dress at check-in for staff is usually a company requirement and in deference to genuine F and J pax you may sit next to who wear coller and tie as standard.
No harm in putting a track suit and trainers in your hand baggage and changing once airborne though.
When I fly the longhauls I usually dress in suit and tie at checkin and pay F or C full fare. It helps me pack more sloppy for the other cloaths and then I have the FA hang up the suit coat.
However when traveling paid R class I go back to sloppy attire to make sure that I'm not considered deceased at the end of the flight.
From what I've observed the older men in this class look like they've been embalmed, they're so well manicured.
pax or someone who is extremely distraught and needs some peace and quiet.
