A frustrated American Airlines elite flyer is complaining that he can’t get upgraded, while pilots fly first class. Are the passenger’s – or the airlines – priorities out of whack?
@TrueWde @AmericanAir waiting for pilot to move up to first class while I was number one on upgrade list. Pilots over customers. Delayed our pushback as well. @americanairlinespilots pic.twitter.com/ndy5JTVNjW
— john zogg (@ZoggJohn83465) June 7, 2025
This is a common complaint. Here’s another American flyer looking at a pilot getting upgrade priority and concluding he should switch to Delta – where unbeknownst to him, only 13% of first class seats go to upgrades.
Platnuim pro on @AmericanAir but still cant get upgraded to first because 2 pilot’s are sitting in 2 of the first class seats. bout to eye up delta real soon. pic.twitter.com/Knbvpvu5jF
— JOHNNY "DELUXE" TOWN (@4EverEboy) December 31, 2024
We understand the importance of having your upgrade cleared, and we're sorry. Under our pilot collective bargaining agreement, pilots deadheading to operate a flight will be added to the top of the upgrade list at their time of check-in.
— americanair (@AmericanAir) January 12, 2025
Upgrades have gotten nearly impossible on most airlines, and one small element that’s crowding out elite upgrades is that pilots now sometimes take priority over passengers. While United prompted this by adding this for pilots in 2020, American Airlines changed its policy with their 2023 pilot contract. For the first time, their deadheading pilots receive upgrades ahead of customers to available first class seats at the gate.
Officially, in American Airlines computer systems, these pilots are coded with a higher priority even than top status Executive Platinum and even ConciergeKey members. Here’s the full detail, from an internal memo, on how pilot priority for first class upgrades works now at American Airlines.
Unsold first class seats now go to employees who are not piloting an aircraft between segments on a trip they’re working. That’s different than commuting to and from their base if they live in a different city than where they’re assigned to start and end their trips.
Some readers say ‘this is business travel’ so pilots deserve it, but most companies don’t pay for first class on domestic travel, and certainly not companies like American Airlines that underperform financially.
And pilots don’t need this for safety or to stave off exhaustion.
- Their safety record was phenomenal before receiving this. There was simply no safety issue to address.
- And deadheading flights are duty hours. It’s time in the cabin instead of the cockpit. It’s more restful than actually flying. There’s just no argument that this is necessary to keep a pilot fresh.
I do think it’s a bad look when customers never see an upgrade, but they see pilots clearing ahead of them. I don’t blame the pilots at all. They’d rather have first class than coach, and they negotiated it as part of their contract. The problem lies with management, whose priorities I see as off, and who have failed to keep up with demand for premium products so upgrades have become exceedingly rare – even as they promote those upgrades as a benefit of regularly buying tickets with the airline and spending on their co-brand credit cards.
People just have to live with the idea that upgrades don’t happen anymore. To be honest, airlines should stop offering them — it’s a giant bait-and-switch where they suck you in with the promise of all these benefits if you’re loyal to them, but they have absolutely no loyalty to you.
Sucker!
Indeed very frustrating to not get an upgrade with high status on AA- sometimes #33? oh well-
I like to receive first class upgrades as much as the next guy. However, I don’t begrudge pilots getting a first class seat. I can live with it.
Enough of this whining about the scarcity of upgrades. Just purchase a first class ticket if you want to sit in front.
If first class means so much to you then either book first or purchase the upgrade. The upgrade offers if you wait and monitor can be quite generous. Like getting top status flying really cheap fares to gain miles or upgrades based upon first come/first serve (AA) the day of unlimited free upgrades has come to an end. If you want to play the upgrade lottery know that most of the time you will loose and get what you paid for, a seat in coach.
Whining about not getting an upgrade. The privilege runs deep.
“Going for great” not. Putting staff over paying customers is a well documented case study of a failing business. They negotiated the CBA clause with the pilots, shame on them for trying to hide behind that wall/excuse.
I am old enough to have seen (at least twice) Bob Crandall give up his F seat to a paying customer, and that was in the era where AA/AMR actually made an op profit.
Deadheading pilots getting into first class. Oh the horror. And here we have another opportunity to rage about it.
If you wanna guarantee you’ll fly first… buy it. The in-app upgrades are usually affordable.
@ Gary — It was incredibly furitaing when we recently boarded a UA regional jet to find two pilots seated in the bulkhead, with three bags each taking up nearly all of the first class overhead bin space. We were the second non-passenger pilots to board and had to place our bags in economy. Asshats.
Frequent flier programs are dead. I’m surprised that the FTC hasn’t looked at the programs (and their promotion) as unfair and deceptive. How many times have we seen sign up bonuses that promise free flights after a single purchase (good luck with that)? How many times have we seen program devaluations with little to no notice? Being loyal has never been so dumb.
Ah, a collective bargaining agreement deal. Well that explains a lot. One more reason unions should be busted. They’re a relic of the Eisenhower days and have long outlived their usefulness.
@Liam is totally correct. Loyalty is a sucker’s game nowadays. I gave up chasing it. Will spend 25-30k on airfare this year and it will be across multiple carriers.
Every time I fly, I always assume that I’ll wind up in the middle seat in the last row across from the lav. If I do better than that, hey, bonus.
What a stark contrast with Copa Airlines, long time ago when I was top-tier elite they switched a pilot already sitting in business class to first row middle seat economy (where I was seated). Scoring a last minute upgrade. And that was LAX to PTY so it was significant.
“Loyalty” programs are dead. What are the incentives for loyalty? Very little to no value. US airlines are really credit card companies who transport people.
Upgrades are an illusory benefit on mainline domestic AA. Get a grip; times have changed. I have booked first on AA and then a separate economy ticket on an American Eagle flight. I will be upgraded on the A Eagle flight. I also only do that if the economy option is like 90 min or less because that’s my economy time max. I am glad for the pilots because working for a living sucks. I am happy to buy First for when I want it and pilots are probably good seat mates.
DFWSteve, management bargains with the union over the contract. If management agreed to it, it’s their fault. Not the union.
If first class is sold out, and no upgrades are available, that doesn’t mean that they are not keeping up with demand. It means that they have optimized revenue. I don’t like the fact that this makes less upgrades available, but it doesn’t mean that they aren’t keeping up with demand. If they wanted to make more upgrades available, they would need to increase fares to maintain a profitable flight while still allowing free upgrades. I would be OK with that, as long as it wasn’t a substantial increase.
Maybe I’m a lucky one, but I have been upgraded on 21 of 26 flights this year, including 14 flights in a row currently, which is probably a personal record. I fly out of Phoenix weekly (not CK but EP) to SFO, SAN, and LAX. I will not be reimbursed for a first or business class ticket from work and always purchase coach.
However, If I’m flying for personal or leisure, and more than 3-4 hours, I will typically purchase a business/first class seat or use miles for the same. It’s worth it for me and (and my spouse, also EP) and takes the “maybe” upgrade out of play. Whether it’s a pilot or Jim from Jacksonville, being number 1 on the upgrade list and losing out is frustrating, so control the controllables and book the higher class yourself.
And stop whining.
All the loyalty programs are trash. Hotels want ridiculous points for a stay and good luck using miles to get a trip. Best options, in my opinion, is the American Express platinum card. You can generate points and exchange them on AMEX Travel, often less than the airlines require, and if you fly First/Business you get 35% of your points back. You also get worthless miles on your carrier as well. I expect at some point the government will file lawsuits against hotels, airlines, etc. for fraud, and rightfully so. It’s nothing more than a bait and switch scheme.
Just one more example that this group of employees – in lock step with senior management – doesn’t care one iota for those who pay their half million dollar salaries!!
For all these khants who haven’t gotten it yet and who keep wingeing on about loyalty:
To the airlines, loyalty isn’t worth the breath it takes to say it because THEY DON’T CARE.
That goes double for those who keep on about how much they spend on a specific airline, about how much they spend across all (United States) airlines, or how they’re never going to fly XYZ airline again.
For every swinging d–k who gets all hot and bothered and says he’s never going to fly United again, his doppelganger is swearing the same thing about American (or Delta or Southwest or…) and guess what? The airlines know it doesn’t matter because in this game of musical chairs, when the swearin’ and pontificatin’ stops, everyone’s gonna be in a seat and the airlines are still gonna make money (well, not American for sure and Southwest pretty likely not).
And bottom line, once again, the AIRLINES DON’T CARE.
@OneXMarine:
The 35% Membership Rewards points rebate is only valid on the Amex Platinum Business card, not on the personal card.
And miles earned from flying aren’t worthless on all airlines (although I believe that’s pretty much true for U.S. airlines); For Star Alliance flyers, crediting miles flown to Aegean gets you Star Alliance Gold status pretty quickly and easily and that is worth something for those who can use it.
Gary is completely right.
“Their safety record was phenomenal before receiving this. There was simply no safety issue to address.”
This was negotiated by labor unions and the companies gave it because they knew they could. Unions have nothing but that mgmt gave them.
and loyalty programs do still provide millions of reward tickets per year.
We can dumb this discussion down to “suck it up and buy first class,” or we can take a broader view.
1. Airlines want loyal customers who bring good recurring revenue. That usually comes from frequent travelers.
2. To get frequent travers we offer perks to incentivize loyalty.
3. Over time we’ve dialed those perks back because we want / need more revenue.
4. At time, with no revenue benefit or any benefit for that matter, we have made the executive decision through collective bargaining to put employees before paying customers.
5. And when the FAs’ contract is ready for renegotiation we’ll see if we feel we need to offer them seat up front as well.
What am I missing here?
If not a great policy, but if it’s been in place since 2023, elites have had time to move their business elsewhere and can no longer complain.
I always prefer well rested happy pilots over disgruntled tired ones.
It has been many years since there has been any reasonable chance of getting an upgrade on any flight where you’d want one. The US airlines are filling their planes with paying passengers, so have little need for loyal customers. I’m one of those that buys F. But I have no loyalty.
Isn’t AA the last major airline, after Delta and United, to upgrade pilots ahead of pasengers ?
Sad but so much has changed for the worst with all airlines. In our local paper, an article about Delta charging more for single passengers, as in one person traveling alone. Greed. Sad.
Depending on the airframe, sometimes they have more than two pilots required for the longer flights – and having the ‘relief’ pilot sitting in First Class up front IS their required seat. And switches out with the flying pilot on regular times. On airframes that do NOT have a sleeping berth for the extra (currently not-flying) pilot(s).
With AA, I was an EP for three years and got burned so many times, I purposely scaled back to PP to keep Emerald and have just done paid upgrades if I really want it. Even the systemwide upgrades were challenging to ‘confirm’ until ‘at the gate’ practically. At this rate, I’m questioning whether pushing to renew PP is even necessary.
Compare to UA, I was a 1K for two years, and hardly ever used my PlusPoints, often ‘dying’ on the waitlist. I’m a Platinum Pro these days. I’m gonna let it slide to Silver this year. I’ve had enough of Newark. Sheesh.
Finally, @Tim Dunn will be pleased to know that Delta Diamond actually treats us well. It’s 50/50 on complimentary upgrades domestically these days. And, if you select them as your Choice Benefits for Diamond and Platinum, the GUC and RUCs, respectively, are actually usually confirmed in-advance. So, I’d say Delta is still honoring loyalty these days.
“No waivers, no favors, no upgrades, no freebies. You will get exactly what you paid for and not one thing more.”