Raptor

I'm a major deviant...wait, deviator

PolicyWonk

"Raptor's guide to Deviating"

This Dummy or is it Dummie would be glad for your extra insight.

PolicyWonk

LAG

Thanks for the deliberation.

Do you have a perspective on the fairness of this?

Here's mine.

The guys who live in Memphis, who don't deviate, who don't get to cancel hotel rooms very often at all, who won't have much of a bank to deal with, can stay in the cramped quarters with their knees under their chin. Unless they pay for legroom out of their own pocket.

I, the deviator, will have a bank to pay for leg room.

I hope Raptor is right on the wording of this one. Because it discriminates against those who live where they are the most beneficial to the company.

FDXLAG

PW

There is enough in the TA that concerns me. I suspect Raptor is probably right and it is like a baggae fee or an internat charge. Something the company will pick up on its on.

One of the reasons I deviate is I like to pick the airline and seat. I would probably do it if I lived in Memphis. Just like I never accepted the 1st dental appointment they assigned me in the Air Force I never fly scheduled on principle. So I am the wrong guy to ask about accepting a crappy scheduled ticket on frontier.

busdriver12

Many people who live in Memphis deviate on the back end. They either catch the jumpseat, or book a flight on the airline of their choice. If they take the crappy Frontier flight, it will be on the front end, so they don't have to risk the deviation. However, they could do the planning and take the effort that deviators do, to book themselves a more acceptable flight.
Or they could grab a FedEx jumpseat, or not even bid for deadheads. Last thing I believe Memphis dwellers are going to complain about is the unfairness of this issue. They can bid and schedule their deadheads to have a bank like the rest of us do.

However, if PolicyWonk was a FedEx pilot, he would know all this.

Raptor

Reading the NC slides from the roadshow, it says "Allowable deviation expenses now include seat selection fees...."

Guess it's a deviation expense, but it's sure nestled in the scheduled expenses area. Too bad for Memphis scheduled flyers if true.

PolicyWonk

Raptor

I hope you'll consider putting out a deviator guide when we have a contract. It would be valuable to many of us, especially the new hires.

But you will need to update it as we lose arbitrations for the ambiguous language and lack of examples in this section.

FXDX

Would like to resurrect this thread to see if anybody has any practical experience with the seat selection fee reimbursement. Couple of questions please:

1: is the fee only reimbursable for those who deviate? From what I can determine from the expense report it is only available as a drop down from the deviation selection of the activity type. Not available from the scheduled activity type. So it looks like you have to deviate to actually get reimbursed, even if you are flying on the scheduled deadhead.

2: If you purchase a seat selection and pay for it with the company credit card ahead of time and then you don't end up taking that flight (assuming you cancel the ticket ahead of time) do the airlines reimburse you for the charges?

Any actual experience that anybody could relate with these issues would be appreciated.

Thanks

Nightflyer

I purchased a seat upgrade, then the company took me off the flight.

The airline reimbursed me, but I had to call them to get them to do it.

Sunny1

I just had both of these come up last month. I ended up calling the crew expense auditing because they said I was missing a receipt that I had no idea what they were talking about. It was for a seat upgrade to economy plus, and she first told me what receipt they needed, and then explained to me that I was listing it as a scheduled expense when it’s a deviation expense. I explained to her that I hadn’t deviated and was on the scheduled flight. She said that their system is set up for seat upgrades in their deviation section, and that even though I’m on the scheduled I need to list it as a deviation expense, and as long as I have the bank it’s covered. Makes absolutely no sense to me, but she’s an auditor and said that’s how it’s done.

The refund of the seat upgrade. I had a flight that AA canceled and I had purchased seat upgrades. I thought maybe my seat upgrade would be refunded along with my ticket, but it is not. With AA at least I had to go on their website and request a refund of my seat upgrade expense. It only took 3 or 4 days to get a refund notification from them. I put in the crew comments at the end of the expense report that I had submitted for a seat upgrade refund on my flight that had been changed by schedules or canceled, etc. when I received the refund notice I uploaded the email receipt in the receipt section of the expense report and it was done. This was for the Dec report period and it shows that it is closed.