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Non-Cass JS denied cabin seat on Continental!

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Weasil

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 19, 2003
Posts
752
Here's a copy of a letter .. just sent to our jumpseat coordinator.....


Capt. XXXXX,

I just wanted to shoot you a quick note to alert you to a problem which may affect other PSA pilots in the future. It already ruined my Thanksgiving by keeping me from getting home for my extended family's Thanksgiving dinner. This was particularly frustrating as it would have been my first chance to make it to the annual get-together in 9 years.

I had finished a trip was attempting to J/S from DCA to EWR on Continental Airlines flight 1108 with a scheduled departure time of 12:59 PM. I arrived at the gate 40 minutes prior to scheduled departure time. As my family lives in northern New Jersey I tend to J/S on CAL quite a lot out of DCA and have never had a problem other than full or weight restricted flights. When I handed my ID, pilot certificate and medical to the agent he advised me that Continental had just gone to a new listing system based on CASS. I told him that PSA was not yet CASS approved but that there should be an alternate means of provided access to a cabin seat for non CASS airlines listed on CAL's reciprocal jumpseat list. ( I have seen the memo describing how US Airways mainline does this.) He told me that there was no way around the CASS template and that I had been returned as "DENIED" for the obvious reason that PSA is not CASS approved. Another agent confirmed this to me. I asked to speak to the captain but was told that there is nothing he could do and that there was no way for me to be allowed to go onto the aircraft to talk with him. I then politely asked to speak to a supervisor. The supervisor advised me that there was absolutely no way a non CASS pilot could now jumpseat on CAL even with plenty of empty cabin seats because the ONLY way to put a jumpseater in the system was through CASS.

While I realize that we will eventually get CASS, until then we have effectively been shut out of jumpseating on Continental. As we have a reciprocal Jumpseat agreement in place with the CAL pilots, I feel that this is an unfair and inappropriate action and needs to be brought to the attention of the Continental Jumpseat Coordinator. For what it is worth, since Continental Express is not a CASS approved airline, jumpseating on an express flight would continue as normal.

I would appreciate hearing from you how the Continental jumpseat coordinator responds to this situation. Also, do we have any sort of tentative date for CASS implementation at PSA? Not that promises mean anything here of course.

Thank you and Happy Thanksgiving,


Captain XXXXX
_________________________________________________
I cut and paste this on here as I felt it necessary to get this information in front of any Continental Pilots who might visit these pages. I'm hoping that this is just a mistake on the part of the DCA gate agents and needs to be corrected. As a commuter myself I am disturbed by this development.
 
I just recently read a note from the Continental jumpseat coordinator . To paraphrase...it stated that the gate agents now have one form to fill in in the computer. They simply put your airline code into the form. This one form checks CASS and the recipricol JS list. The computer then spits out an approval and a note if you can sit in the 1W or if you must sit in the back.

I hope that this was just one moron gate agent as I have to use CAL in a couple of weeks. Let us know what's up.

Gobble Gobble
 
The agents are severely missinformed as usual. I'm not a CAL pilot, but I am most certain that the system has not changed. You should get a seat in back as usual for a non-cass pilot assuming seats available in the back. If over night, non-cass pilots were denied boarding there would be a whole lot of pilotless airplanes. I am very sorry you missed out on a holiday because of there stupidity.
 
Weasil,

I want to appologize on behalf of the Continental pilots. This is deeply troubling to me. The gate agents were 100% wrong in this case. They most certainly should have allowed you to jumpseat in the cabin.

This is from our October jumpseat update.



Non-CASS-participating pilots will only be given a​
boarding pass, exactly like that of
a "regular" passenger, with an actual seat assignment. They will not be given an
ACM slip, or a computer printout of any kind. Even though they have seat
assignments, they’re still always an ACM… your additional crewmember you can
call in at any time for assistance.



Since I commute out of DCA this is even more troubling. I will be sure to have a converstation about this with the station people next time I commute up. Obviously we are having implementation problems with our new policy. I am very sorry this happened to you.


 
What's also disturbing is the fact that they didn't let you talk to the capt. What a bunch of BS.......and on a holiday weekend nonetheless.
 
Weasil said:
Here's a copy of a letter .. just sent to our jumpseat coordinator.....


Capt. XXXXX,

I just wanted to shoot you a quick note to alert you to a problem which may affect other PSA pilots in the future. It already ruined my Thanksgiving by keeping me from getting home for my extended family's Thanksgiving dinner. This was particularly frustrating as it would have been my first chance to make it to the annual get-together in 9 years.

I had finished a trip was attempting to J/S from DCA to EWR on Continental Airlines flight 1108 with a scheduled departure time of 12:59 PM. I arrived at the gate 40 minutes prior to scheduled departure time. As my family lives in northern New Jersey I tend to J/S on CAL quite a lot out of DCA and have never had a problem other than full or weight restricted flights. When I handed my ID, pilot certificate and medical to the agent he advised me that Continental had just gone to a new listing system based on CASS. I told him that PSA was not yet CASS approved but that there should be an alternate means of provided access to a cabin seat for non CASS airlines listed on CAL's reciprocal jumpseat list. ( I have seen the memo describing how US Airways mainline does this.) He told me that there was no way around the CASS template and that I had been returned as "DENIED" for the obvious reason that PSA is not CASS approved. Another agent confirmed this to me. I asked to speak to the captain but was told that there is nothing he could do and that there was no way for me to be allowed to go onto the aircraft to talk with him. I then politely asked to speak to a supervisor. The supervisor advised me that there was absolutely no way a non CASS pilot could now jumpseat on CAL even with plenty of empty cabin seats because the ONLY way to put a jumpseater in the system was through CASS.

While I realize that we will eventually get CASS, until then we have effectively been shut out of jumpseating on Continental. As we have a reciprocal Jumpseat agreement in place with the CAL pilots, I feel that this is an unfair and inappropriate action and needs to be brought to the attention of the Continental Jumpseat Coordinator. For what it is worth, since Continental Express is not a CASS approved airline, jumpseating on an express flight would continue as normal.

I would appreciate hearing from you how the Continental jumpseat coordinator responds to this situation. Also, do we have any sort of tentative date for CASS implementation at PSA? Not that promises mean anything here of course.

Thank you and Happy Thanksgiving,


Captain XXXXX
_________________________________________________
I cut and paste this on here as I felt it necessary to get this information in front of any Continental Pilots who might visit these pages. I'm hoping that this is just a mistake on the part of the DCA gate agents and needs to be corrected. As a commuter myself I am disturbed by this development.

So did you then pay for a seat to get home??

From what know of CASS, if your not on it, you can't get a JS.
 
I apologise for not making it clear. This did not happen to me. This happened to one of our captains and this is the letter he wrote to our Jumpseat Co-ordinator. As a fellow commuter I am trying to get some clarification from Continental Guys and perhaps to spread the word a bit that there is confusion with the new system.

US Airways has the CASS system now, we at PSA (being a wholly owned express carrier) are still awaiting the AOK from our POI at the FAA (hehe.. couldn't resist). :rolleyes:

To answer the last post... non-cass jumpseating pilots can be given a seat in the cabin - just not in the actual cockpit jumpseat.

The idea of CASS was to enlarge the avenues for getting to/from work for us commuters, not reduce them.
 
scoreboard said:
So did you then pay for a seat to get home??

From what know of CASS, if your not on it, you can't get a JS.
What CASS does is give you access to the cockpit, you are still allowed to "jumpseat" in an empty seat in the back if you have a reciprocal agreement with Contininetal. That list is supposed to be maintained in the company computer system which is accessable to the gate agents.

From what I understand there are three responses that the gate can get when they input the information 1. approved for cockpit js 2. approved cabin only 3. denied.

Perhaps they input the information incorrectly, or maybe there is a problem with the list in the computer not showing PSA.
 
They also denied me j/s out of houston and I was there 1 hour early and the gate agent said she would call a supervisor, and never did!! The flight lefted me behind with over 20 seats open. ANd YES you can talk to the captain if they will let you--THAT is just a very unprofessioanl gate agent...write CAL and tell them, that their agents do not know company policy...

I got on the flight 3 hours later, and this agent knew what she was doing!! They have to put in the RIGHT--LISTEN the RIGHT AIRLINE....ASA--Atlantic Southeast Airlines...NOt DELTA PSA---NOT USair..it will deny you.

the first agent was putting in Delta and it knows that my employee number is not Delta....So make sure they are putting in who you really work for,,,not the major that you connect with....

Talked to Captain in IAH and he was upsat that the agent would not even discuss it with the captain of that flight.....
 

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