The story that I heard on the origination of “behind the wing” was well before my time here. I guess HK, taking care of his internal customers, had all non-revs pre-board by policy. Which is super cool! However, he asked that they sit behind the wing. That’s a great deal to be guaranteed to sit with your family on a non-rev and not rely on a friendly ops agent to hopefully let you on early. In that case, it might have been a fair ask. The story goes on that when GK took the helm, he ended the program very quickly. Now, we board last, by policy. However, the “behind the wing” had caught on in “the culture” and refused to die as it continued to be applied by ourselves to ourselves. It never had anything to do with DH (only non-rev) and policy no longer supports pre-board non-revs. Therefore, no deal. I’m not going behind the wing. It would be great if we didn’t hire mental lunatics to work the cabin.

 

It definitely was a thing for a long time. When I first started here in the mid 20teens, it was practiced and enforced. A few years later pilots especially started saying eff this and not doing it. Now it is in the employee travel manual, but it says should when possible, which to me means completely optional. I have wasted enough of my life waiting for people to get off of airplanes.
Of course now it doesn't matter anyway. We are going to be in 24B and like it.

 

UA needs WN LCO language. Just got reassigned to operate and layover in LGA instead of DH to OMA layover, from the west coast. Got nothing....
WN needs UA DH language.
5-C-1 When On-Line deadheading on a Basic Flight, a Pilot shall be booked positive space in First Class, if available at
time of booking. If First Class is not available, the Pilot shall be booked as outlined below, and up until three (3)
hours prior to scheduled departure time, shall be upgraded automatically (in seniority order within Status and
ahead of all upgrading passengers) if a First Class seat becomes available.
A Pilot whose deadhead is booked under this Section 5-C-1 shall not be required to deadhead in
Economy Class if the seat is not an Economy Plus or Premium Economy seat (you can walk off if they give you 24B)
If a Pilot is required to deadhead in a middle seat in Economy Class (including Economy Plus and
Premium Economy), they shall receive Add Pay equal to fifty percent (50%) of the scheduled Flight Time of
the deadhead leg.

 

From what I remember, quite a while ago, via flight ops bulletin or email or something similar, they officially said it was no longer required or encouraged to sit behind the wing. The gist of the message was “sit wherever you want.” That’s when I and a bunch of others stopped doing it. It did seem like a lot of the koolaid types continued to sit behind the wing, though, for whatever reason. Moot point, though, anymore.

 

The other thing that made me stop sitting behind the wing is watching commuting Spirit FAs sit in row 3. I started feeling like an idiot after the third time.

 

As a nearly 30-year FA, I want to apologize to you.

I get so sick of my co-workers enforcing their own, made-up rules or rules that have not been in place for years or more..

This was a rule YEARS ago... but long since abandoned.

Perhaps you should remind that FA that, back in the days, we were also prohibited from sleeping while on a deadhead or, even more recently, the most junior deadheading FA had to sit on the jumpseat even on a four hour flight....

I bet he or she would LOVE to have those rules enforced again.

Some of my coworkers make this job so much more complicated than it needs to be.

I can see why some of y'all don't like us.

 

thanks.
This was only the 2nd time someone was persistent about it.
Sometimes I get a one off remark but it ends there. Usually they tell me I can sit anywhere, I appreciate the gesture but it shows maybe they didn't know.
honestly I have nothing against my fellow colleagues as a rule and believe we are all on the same team and start each day that way. However, ive also leanred to not engage. Less is more sometimes.

 

The DH debacle is 100% about revenue.

Someone finally sat down and took a look at the amount of DH'ing that happens around the system and realized how much revenue it was going to cost them. It's why they said you can BUY the premium seat. I just operated a DAL-DEN flight that had 22 DH crew members. That's 22 premium seats that don't go to paying pax and if a pax already paid, that's money that the company has to compensate.

Not our problem that the company didn't fully realize the cost of the 'premium seating' clause in the new CBA.

 

They're referring to the travel document where they say NONREV travelers should sit behind the wing. You can find this document on swalife.

The word should means diddly squat to me on so many levels. First and foremost, until it says "shall", kindly eff off. 'Should' is a suggestion, 'shall' is a requirement. By default, the FA suggestion is noted and promptly rejected.

Second, if I'm deadheading, I'm working - I'm paid to be there, so yeah, I'm taking the best damn seat there is.

Going forward with assigned seating, this is gonna be interesting... middle seat regular seat? Highly uncomfortable for many and this level of discomfort could possibly lead to a fatigue call. I would imagine most people taller than 6'2" will find themselves cramped and uncomfortable in the middle seats in the back of the plane.

 

That’s only if there were 22 premium seats available at time of booking. If there’s a passenger who paid for the better seat, they won’t be bumped.