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.
Pilots have been more successful in contract negotiations more than anyone else in the aviation community, except for C-level folks that is.
FAs have an equal “safety” responsibility but have not successfully negotiated on par with the pilots.
I believe an investigation into the frequency of pilots DHing over FAs will yield a gross disparity in favor of pilots being paid to not work at a disproportionate rate.
A simple solution is in perception; give the pilot a real ticket for the seat rather than highlighting the issue by putting their name on the upgrade list.
When Airlines decided to add First Class and Frequent Flyer Awards, they created a Monster. No passenger is more important to an airline than the least of them. Airlines pamper these entitled whiners and for what? First class should only be for those who PAY for the seat. Free Upgrades should never be given to these whiners. What on earth makes them think they are more important than a Pilot.
@ 1990 – What DL routes are you flying? Even as a DM, I never book coach, so I don’t have a good feel for where upgrades are possible.
Collective bargaining… union extortion.
@Gene — Well, until their recent ‘meltdown’ over June 5-6, I enjoyed booking plenty of regional Endeavor flights outta NYC to various domestic destinations. Book Main, get Comfort, then often upgraded within 5 days prior to departure, sometimes at the gate. Depends on the route, time of day, etc. If it’s 3-3 in Economy (737, a321), I tend to pony-up to sit up front if I really want it.
The hel# with these mere frequent top tier paying passengers give these self entitled folks the dirt that they truly deserve!
Classic Gary and his Anti-AA pilot slop. I swear one of them must have wronged you early in life. You never mention anything about United pilots with the same vitriol. Only people who get it worse from you and your ilk are FAs.
And please keep your commentary about airline safety to a minimum. You’re a “thought leader” in points and perks, not aviation safety. Your ignorance shows when you venture too far off.
“…but most companies don’t pay for first class on domestic travel, and certainly not companies like American Airlines that underperform financially.”
But they do Gary. Lots of businesses do. Also, a pretty low blow on your end. You’re kind of turning into a negative POS.
Why people rant about not being upgraded?
Do not take upgrades as granted, if you want it, you pay for it.
It is silly people is demanding being upgraded…
I am in favor of the EU way, just get an upgrade on rare ocassions as a gesture for your loyalty or when the cabin is oversold, but this US way of filling 2, 3, 4 empty J seats is silly…
This whole upgrading thing in the US has gotten out of hand. They could probably sell more business class seats if they didn’t upgrade people so often, and increase their revenues (especially if they add lounge services). In the EU is not unusual to see 12 rows of business class on a 2-hour flight, and there’s no free upgrades.
The real issue is not deadheading pilots, which are nowhere near on every flight. The real issue is the airline selling upgrades for a low cost to get some money for upgrades. Those upgrade clear long before the gate upgrades. On top of that, unpublished and top-tier customers get upgraded on unpopular flights well ahead of check-in. United allows GS customers to call customer service to force an upgrade as long as one seat in the upgrade class remains for sale. Only one pilot can get upgraded if a GS customers force they upgrades on United. I don’t know the full set of rules for other airlines, but I can’t believe they are very different.
Just love to see entitled people complaining about not receiving an “upgrade”. Same ones who line up in the Priority lane (and block the boarding gates) 1/2 hour before boarding time, because they are so much more important than everyone else!
If I want first class, I pay for it. Otherwise if I get an upgrade (actually got one on Delta last month) I consider myself grateful.
So much complaining instead of just going with the flow…
You want a FC seat? PAY FOR IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Upgrades are optional. If you want a first class seat fork over the dough. These are company jets and they are giving company employees preference – no harm no foul.
I’d rather have my pilots well rested for their next flight over giving some status snob an upgrade thank you very much.
Same old entitlement from an economy pax that feels entitled to F. If you want to fly F, pay for it. With discount upgrades being offered on the app, just buy the seat. Think of status getting you bonus points, even more space Y seat, and early boarding. The truth is all US airlines lose money flying paxs, so you are not a profit center, especially in Y.
Not sure about anyone else, but I prefer the idea of crew being well rested rather than stuck up the back in a middle seat.
Most passengers pay for the cheapest seat, so if the rest of the plane is full and there’s space in J, then crew sit there and folk hoping for a free upgrade lose out. Pay for the seat up front and that’s where you’ll sit. If you don’t, then don’t expect it. Simple.
The issue is AA confirms that the pilots hit the front of the list when they sign on to the flight. EXP/platpro confirm well ahead, days out. They’re not processing those upgrades instead they choose to wait and try and sell those tickets. What’s the point of having a 96 hour upgrade window if it’s not going to be policy?
This is it:
“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.“
Don’t promote published benefits than not deliver on them.
Loyalty is a two way street
If flying Y was so detrimental to an airline, ULCCs would not exist and airlines that just sold F and J seats would dominate. But that is not the case. Airlines still make money (usually) on the marginal cost of transporting passengers in coach. Each coach passenger comes with the possibility of using the credit card with the company name on it. Upsells for assigned seats, luggage and boarding order are common. Airlines also have other revenue streams related to coach passengers. All of those revenue streams would collapse if the airlines quit flying passengers. So, no, airlines do not necessarily lose money flying passengers.
We (the pilots) negotiated this benefit. If a customer is on the upgrade list, that means they did not purchase an upgraded seat, so I really don’t see the problem. I will never feel guilty for sitting in first as a deadheader because it’s a negotiated perk. This article, like most of your articles, is making a big deal about a non-issue.
The pilots should not be in uniform and the image problem is solved
I miss the days when there weren’t 30 pax on the upgrade list for every flight. Back on the 90s when I was a gate agent and flight attendant for Delta, we regularly had the opportunity to upgrade people who REALLY deserved it, like the 87 year-old lady who was flying to attend her son’s funeral or young, poor newlyweds. Flying shouldn’t always be about the money. It’s more miraculous than that.
It’s becoming clearer each day to me that my heavy business travel years between 1995-2012 must’ve been during a period of travel upgrades that current travelers are now waxing nostalgia for.
Once I hit Delta’s Diamond Super Turbo Elite (I forget the various names the program had over the course of two decades) Blah-Blah- Status, I rarely missed an upgrade. In fact, from 2010-2013 I flew a three year period where I never once sat in coach, and 90-95% of the time I would receive a text message 48-hours prior to my flight that confirmed the upgrades. The only time I would have to gate standby for an upgrade is when I was flying with one of my children, and somehow we would still end up in the front cabin. I remember one flight from BOS-MSP-PHX (home) that two of my children and wife were upgraded on both legs of travel. Even if I coincidentally ended up flying on the same flight as a colleague or client, I would ask the gate agent and get an upgrade for that person.
The stories I read and hear of air travel post-Covid makes me grateful for not having to endure 250,000 miles of annual flying during this era of membership over-saturation. It really seems like nobody gets upgraded anymore.
Sometimes I miss all that flying, and then I read these articles and – instead – I just appreciate how lucky I was that I was doing all the flying during the salad years of member upgrades.
Meh, as an AA platinum, I’ll take my free MCE seat, with free booze, priority boarding, and not complain.
To all of you flapping your gums about “whiners” in First Class—spare me.
You fly four times a year, book the cheapest fare on whatever sketchy OTA has the lowest number, and think you’re qualified to weigh in on how this machine works? You should be lighting candles and thanking whatever gods you pray to that people like me exist. People who fly 100 (in a good year) to 160+ segments a year. Every year. For decades. People who live in airports. Who miss anniversaries, birthdays, funerals—because we’re out there grinding on red-eyes, eating prepackaged sadness in a lounge at 5:00 a.m., racking up miles the hard way. The expensive way.
We’re not racking up upgrades on credit card hacks. We’re paying walk-up fares that would make your internet trolling head spin. Business travel. Real spend. The kind of money that floats your bargain-bin seat to Disney so you can haul your crying toddler and matching neck pillows to gate C19 without selling a kidney.
So yeah, I damn well earn my upgrades. I pay for your pretzels in 35B, the grouchy overworked gate agents, and that pilot’s next raise. I don’t owe you an apology because you think my wanting what I’ve earned is some sort of social justice failure. You think I’m “elite?” Brother, there’s nothing elite about a suitcase full of wrinkled shirts, a body held together by hotel bar menus and ibuprofen or my alimony payment.
And while we’re at it—let’s talk about those pilots. You don’t bump top-tier flyers who are the financial backbone of your mismanaged, underperforming airline just so Captain Deadhead and his three uniformed drinking buddies can ride in First to DFW on the midnight flight out of DCA. That’s not operations. That’s arrogance. That’s stupidity in a polyester tie.
The people like me—the ones you resent—make this whole thing work. Without us, you’re looking at fares that’ll make your family trip to Orlando a once-in-a-lifetime event unless you really think your Dodge minivan can make the trip. So the next time you want to trash frequent flyers, ask yourself what it’d cost if we stopped flying. Go ahead. Do the math. Or just look at what happened to your fares the past few years when a lot of our brethren did have to stop flying. That’s right—your fares went up and now your sniveling crotch goblins only get to go to Chucky Cheese once a month. Yep…that’s a way of telling you to say ‘thank you’ or shut the hell up. I don’t frankly give a damn which you choose.
This isn’t a travel hobby. Or some twice a year event we post on Instagram so all of our fellow suburbanites can see us traveling to NYC as is in 2025 that’s special. (It’s not and your neighbors think you’re an idiot). This is life. It’s work. It’s sacrifice. And yeah, sometimes it comes with a hot towel, my Jack and Coke in a real glass and a decent seat for the ride home after 5 days on the road. But don’t confuse that for luxury. It’s the least we’ve earned.
So sit down. Be grateful. Sip your ginger ale in silence. And leave the frequent flyer forums to the people actually flying.
Dare you to try and clap back
The problem is not as simple as it seems. Airline management have created expectations and demand far beyond what they can deliver. Profits take priority over product. To this end, they have made flying in main cabin intolerable for most people. To those who say pony up for first, the cost is beyond most people’s budget. So they’re offered the illusion of an upgrade for their loyalty. Airline loyalty programs are borderline scams. Promise the moon and change the rules if you get close to reaching your goal. It was once said that the only reason we flew DFW to HNL was to give frequent flyers a chance to use their AAdvantage miles.
The solution is so obvious and has been overdue for more than a decade. The solution is to add more first class seats. There have never been enough, yet they promoted their frequent flyer programs as one of the huge benefits. How is it a benefit for upgraded seats that are never available? The airlines should take care of honoring the benefits they promote before the government regulates that they MUST honor the benefits they promote by a certain likeliness.