Originally Posted by
FDXLAG
The Flat Bed Seat language has everything to do with how you can be booked, it has nothing to do with bank. For a practical application, had the JAL flight in question had FC but no seats were available so they booked you in BC, your bank should be authorized FC.
Regardless of the class of service actually ticketed, a pilot’s
deviation bank shall be credited with the Baseline Fare for the
highest class of service which is authorized on the scheduled
deadhead flight, and which exists on that flight.
Look at your quote below for the hierarchy of classes. If we get a discount on JAL, then I think I agree with above. However, we usually do not. Therefore, full-fare business would be all that is authorized (old or new contract) and bank would be BC.
If we got discounted tickets with JAL and the flight had flat-bed FC and the angled BC the OP used, then yes, discounted FC was the authorized fare and should have been credited to the travel bank even though the only thing available was angled BC in your scenario.
Originally Posted by
FDXLAG
What language copied from the contract in the 2011 required UAL discounted First? Old contract new contract same language. The difference is JAL BC on this flight beats UAL FC so they booked you on it. If the JAL flight had a discounted FC they would have been required to book you on it
If a deadhead has 10 or more scheduled block hours, the
travel shall be booked in the following order based upon availability
on the scheduled flight:
(a) First Class (discounted);
(b) Business Class (full fare or discounted);(c) First Class (full fare).
Again what has changed is not the contract language, but the number of airlines only offering Business on particular routes. I don't like it but it is legal and contract 2015 has nothing to do with it. Plenty of times coming back from CDG (two legs to MEM) I think Block and or Duty authorized First, but because AA only had BC, that is what we got.
Forget this JAL angled seat anomaly to KIX for this discussion. This has nothing to do with airlines only offering BC on certain routes. Because there are still plenty of routes flown by US airlines with three class configurations. Pick a bigger Asia market we commonly use like NRT. Go to route pricing on the web site and try to get from one of the big west coast bases for US airlines to NRT in
one flight. Pick SFO: On any given day, the cheapest way to do that is UAL. Since we do not normally get discounted tickets from foreign carriers, the US carriers are going to be cheapest. UAL offers true FC seats and BC seats in that market. THAT'S the factual reality tomorrow, next week or next month based on the information on the company website we would use to buy our own tickets - so I have to assume that's what global travel would be using also.
The hierarchy in the contract still requires discounted first class UNLESS there is flat-bed in business. Given the fact that UAL now has flat-bed seats in business class, we would get ticketed in business class and the accepted fare would be lower. Under the old contract, we would get ticketed in discounted first class and that would be the bank. According to the route pricing (UAL, SFO-NRT): BC - $~7900 FC - $~11100
Going to HKG out of DFW on AA? BC - $~3400 FC - $~4500
Now we get the lower - before, it would have been the higher.