Comments on: Does Delta release too many upgrades in advance?

By: Drew

Drew — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 03:49:30 +0000

I don’t doubt the analytics behind DL’s decisions on these sorts of things… I think they have number crunchers hidden away in some windowless room on Virginia Avenue that can forecast the likelihood of walk-up fares (as previously mentioned), but also the likelihood on any given day of the week – possibly down to the time of day. So on a Florida-NY flight on a Tuesday, they know it’s mostly leisure folks and can open up some Y space for SDC-ers that booked Fla-ATL-NY for some reason…
Day of the week matters for my weekly trips. ATL-DTW & vv on Monday mornings and Thursdays is terrible for advance upgrades as a PM, but fly any other time and it’s a shoe-in for clearing at the window (in my experience)

By: lucky

lucky — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 14:49:36 +0000

@ Sam — It’s actually a DL flight, although close enough to NW given that it’s an MD80.

By: sam

sam — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 05:58:16 +0000

You must have gotten a northwest flight, delta’s notoriously stingy when i comes to advance upgrades

By: Ron

Ron — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 05:14:42 +0000

Delta flights JFK–LAX have lots of misconnects because they leave from terminal 4. A couple of weeks ago we volunteered to be bumped on a flight that was oversold by 12. The staff were proactively hunting for LAX passengers with each shuttle that arrived from terminal 3. We were held at the gate till the very end while the crew were continuously paging “Martinez party of 4″. But Martinez didn’t show up, and Ron party of 4 got on the plane.

By: AS

AS — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:25:40 +0000

@Fozz – agree, route dependent. It’s particularly difficult to get west coast afternoon flights, they are continuations from Europe inbounds so they need to reserve seats for misconnects, and allocate them at the gate.

@Gary – to some degree, don’t other airlines do this too in their own way? eg. buy a Y fare on Continental (or B if elite), get upgraded at purchase.

By: Gary

Gary — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:36:47 +0000

What drives *me* nuts is DL upgrading full fare silvers over standard fare Platinums.

And ex-DCA everyone is a full fare silver. Hint: Government employees work here.

By: Fozz

Fozz — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:24:40 +0000

I think it is very route dependent.

I’ve seen JFK-SAN/SEA/LAX wait until battlefield quite a few times even when no seats are being sold.

It also has a lot to do with the loads in the back as I’m learning. The more full the back is, the more they hold seats back for upgrades.

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:08:01 +0000

Yes, they do (ish).

My issue is with Same Day Confirming, by upgrading FO’s and GM’s at their window, it’s tough to get that seat if plans change.

As for bottom line, they take a look at the market and if it’s a route with walkup F fares, they don’t pre-upgrade as much.

MCO-LAX w/high paid F fares OFTEN have 6-8 seats open on the 737 when it comes to day of.