I don’t understand how someone gets put on standby. Is there some sort of standby ticket? If so, how.. and do people really go through all the hassle of going to an airport while having a possibility of going home?
In: 80
Oh I can answer this! I work for a major US carrier, and yes there is specific tickets for standby! Now, as for how you get standby tickets, there’s a couple different ways.
1. When you check in you can request to fly standby. Generally people do this to leave on an earlier or later flight than their originally scheduled flight.
2. If you missed or were voluntarily/involuntarily bumped off of your original flight.
3. You work for the airlines you can specifically book standby tickets to travel, as well as anyone listed on your travel benefits.
Now, as for why people choose to fly standby, like I said in 1, they want to leave earlier/later than their originally scheduled flight. Obviously if you miss your flight or were bumped you don’t really have a choice.
And as for 3, we’re taking advantage of our flight benefits! We can check how many seats are still open before booking as well. It does suck when we can’t get where we want to go and end up having to get home, but we’re used to it for the most part. This is always how airline employee’s travel privileges work, we only get on as long as there’s empty seats.
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