Alaska Airlines Jumpseat Question
Had an interesting thing happen to me on my commute to work the other day. I was jumping from SAN to SEA and was very fortunate to be given a seat in the back. While standing in line to board, the gate agent was nice enough to offer me an open first class seat. When I showed up in the cockpit to ask the Captain if he minded if I ride along he took one look at my boarding pass and said "They gave you a seat in first class? They're not supposed to do that." Then he escorted me back up to the gate agent and told them to take the seat away from me. His reasoning was that their ops manual said they were not allowed to put jumpseaters in first class. The gate agent was dumbfounded (as was I). There were still seats in the back so I was perfectly happy to just get a ride--no big deal. This is just the first time I have been confronted with this.
The Captain was very cordial and said he would let me sit in the cockpit if he had to so I could get to work. He later showed me the passage in the ops manual and said that his chief pilot had been quoted as saying he "would rather have first class empty with jumpseaters in the cockpit than let them sit in the back."
My question is, where is this reasoning coming from? I just don't understand it. Not that I'm trying to steal first class from paying customers, I'm just curious...