JumpSeat Question for ALL crewmembers.

[PurpleTail]

I am trying to educate myself so I do NOT go threw the same frustrations I experienced this morning ever again getting home.

Question...Which airlines only allow one or two jumpseaters (no matter how empty the flight is) and which airlines will take as many as they can handle? Besides United I'm trying to figure out who to AVOID in the future.

99% of the time I hop on SWA (first choice) and I can not tell you how grateful I am that these are the most accepting, gracious, hospitable, welcoming group of pilots in the industry (IMHO). If I have to spend my money out of my own pocket SWA gets it every time for their wonderful customer service.

This morning though United had an earlier flight (that I listed on and only half full) that would have me home almost an hour earlier. When I got to the gate the agent said rudely "Nope, sorry...someone else beat you to it. We only allow 1 jumpseater and that is it. Bye Bye." Great customer service for a bankrupt airline.

 

[IB6 UB9]

We'll take as many as we can hold. (JB)

 

[BusterHymen]

We'll give you a ride!

We can carry 5 to 6 people due to fleet type, excluding the operating crew.


Atlas Air

 

[Cactus73]

America West - unlimited. If we have 50 seats and fifty jumpseaters, you're going to get home.

 

[OnTheDole]

I think southwest is reciprical though - ie if the company you fly for only allows 1 jump then so do they.

 

[flycrjs]

Delta and ASA

Delta is one jumpseater if memory serves me, no multiples though (no real surprise there...). ASA (my alma mater) had multiple, as many jumpseaters as empty seats.

 

[Falcon Jet 1]

Southwest does have that agreement, but 99% of the captains will take whomever is looking for a ride. I have seen us take four American and three Delta guys at one time. This was us prior to having unlimited recip with American.

 

[Resume Writer]

I think southwest is reciprical though - ie if the company you fly for only allows 1 jump then so do they.

Someone else can probably give greater details on SWA in case things have changed.

When I worked as a CSA about two years ago, they had unlimited jumpseat reciprocal with America West and one or two other carriers. In addition, it was up to two off-line pilots from the other carriers, i.e., DL, UAL, etc., depending upon the reciprocal agreement. It was all based on a first come, first served basis.

So, if five AWA pilots came up, two UAL pilots, and one DL pilot, and there were plenty of seats, then all five AWA would get on, and, depending on the order of the offline pilots, it was first come, first served. However, if the two offline pilots showed up first, and there were only two seats to give, it went to them. So, there was no preference based upon unlimited or restricted reciprocal agreements.

Of course, the SWA pilots jumpseating could sit in the cockpit or the extra FA jumpseat if the seats were tight. I often saw this happen so they could help out their fellow pilots.

The funniest story happened when I was a gate agent with SWA. I had been at the company about 3 months at the time, so I was on probation. Having been a crew member for so many years, I knew what a challenge it was for people that were commuting, so I always tried to help them out.

I was working with a gate agent who had been there about one month more time at the company. The scenario was this: I had 2 UAL pilots and 1 DL pilot show up for the jumpseat. The order of checking in was 1 UAL, 1 DL and then the last UAL pilot. The flight was WIDE open. However, the reciprocal policy stated only 2 offline pilots from those airlines.

So, the Captain was up at the gate and I told him about the last UAL pilot trying to get to LAX to go to work. I told him the flight was wide open and asked if we could accomodate this last UAL pilot. He said absolutely, so I gave a pass to the last UAL pilot.

Well, the gate agent that had only been in the airline industry four months was freaking out. She went to get a supervisor and the supervisor had a "talk" with me. What she said made my mouth drop.

Her words: "We cannot allow the third jumpseater because it is a violation of security." I guess I must have missed that memo.

Anyway, I found this link on the internet if anyone is interested. http://www.webnetdesigns.com/aia/jsguide.pdf#search='airline%20offline%20jumpseat%20policy'

Kathy

 

[Boeingman]

Limited to the number of actual jumpseats on CO. Sorry, they are a stickler about it as well.

To the UAL guy giving me a hard time about that in LAX last month, I didn't make up the policy.

 

[737tanker]

As of now SWA officially gives unlimited jumpseats to Alaska, American, American Eagle, America West, ATA, Frontier, Horizon, Jet Blue, Mesa, Skywest, & USAirways (to include USAir Express).