We don't serve enough "international" destinations (except for most of the Caribbean that we took over when AA pulled out). Bogota, Costa Rica, & Cancun also don't count!

Now tell me again how Southwest got on the list with all their "international destinations"????

Exactly! ........

Dude, seriously, are you angling for a VP job? Sorry, but offline jumpseaters take away approximately ZERO resources from our customers; our agents are just NOT that overworked. It takes exactly 1 minute to verify someone in CASS and then fill out a JS form.

It is ALWAYS a big deal when CS usurps yet another of the fading vestiges of Captain's authority here! Are you one of the guys that smiles and says "thank you sir" when the agent barges in and GSC's while you're running checklists? After all our safety-related functions aren't nearly as important as their facebook time!

If the jumpseat is unequivocally the "captain's", then why can't the captain let his wife ride in it? Or his buddy? Current rules say you can't let an offline jumpseater sit in the cockpit jumpseat unless all the cabin seats are full. Is that a violation of "captain's authority"? The captain's authority only exists within JetBlue's rules. The rules now say no jumpseaters for 3 days. Big Deal.

No need to stroke the old ego by talking trash about the gate agents either. Come on.

Not really meaning to talk trash about the gate agents; I think ours are above average, but that trend vector has been negative lately. I'm fed up with agents sticking their heads in the cockpit and blathering on top of a checklist or brief, and then getting miffed when you ask them to wait 30 seconds. As for Captain's authority, your examples are well outside the FARs. Last week I had an agent tell a Comair guy to sit on the FA jumpseat because he wasn't 'quick enough' settling in upfront. The CA and I tore him a new one.

I'm not sure if you're a commuter, or JFK based, but our people's attitudes towards all pass-riders have been steadily declining. "Just Ask" is turning into a joke, and good luck getting help directly from the gate if you didn't check in first. Again, not meaning to boost my own ego here (I've been a gate agent in a past life) but our customer service is really coasting by on previous reputation. Three days of telling our off-line guests to buzz off is just another example of the trend, IMHO.

I'm to the point where I wont travel through a 'few' select cities with my significant other. The rules mean little to our gate agents, I feel bad for the off-line guys who are treated like garbage. It's a shame.

They threw the AA jumpseat committee a pizza party.

Works with controllers, too.

Maybe it's the fact that SWA carries more jumpseaters than any other airline. SWA is an important extension of the employee bus for numerous crew members.

Is the numbers of jumpseaters carried by each airline listed somewhere? How many does swa carry say vs delta ?
Thanks

Obviously the city pairs that you fly and what airlines have crew bases there affect who/how many jumpseaters you typically take. Here at JetBlue I most often have AA/Eagle & Delta pilots into BOS and JFK. I typically ride on USAir as they connect the dots for me. I've never heard of a list that gives out specific details on who carries who but I'm sure if you could peek into CASS you could do some data mining and figure it out.