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
It’s interesting that a lot of people are explaining different things but none all of it in one. (even employees)
So it works in multiple aspects and situations.
Say you miss a flight/flight is oversold and you get bumped/flight delay or cancelation/etc… With these situations, you will be moved if you choose to (some find other routs) the next available flight to get you to your destination. When this happens, you are placed on a stand by list and it’s ordered by a few different factors. Time you are placed and your priority among the others. When the next flight is boarding, they will board all booked tickets first and then when they determine it won’t fill, they start assigning seats to the people on the stand by list based on availability. I was recently in Dallas late last year and multiple flights were cancel rerouting all these people thru Dallas Airport and onto selected flights. All those people are now on standby waiting for an availability to fly out next. (lucky we all got on, I was a buddy pass)
You are no longer needing to take that later flight and would like to fly out earlier if available. You arrive early to the airport and if you are approved to be placed on the standby list, you will wait for boarding. Same as above, once all booked passengers are boarding they will go to the list to allow standby passengers to board based on the order of the list.
Employees and friends/family buddy passes. This is a cheap flight you are able to get when you are an employee or an employee places you on their buddy pass list (how I fly in the US). These seats are never guaranteed and are based on availability. These tickets are always standby tickets. So like above, if the flight is not full they start to pull people from the stand by list. This is as stated above based on priority once again. Buddy passes on standby are usually bottom priority (employees get x amount of annual ones they can prioritize for themselves to bypass some people on th lisr. I think American is called a D1?) Yes buddy passes are booked flights, they are just not guaranteed that specific flight.
Standby lists can be full of people from all 3 groups and everyone is prioritized on different things.
I’ve been on buddy passes that board the flight I’ve originally been assigned to and I’ve had them where they have rolled over to several flights later.
So it’s basically a list of several groups that are assigned to a list for whatever reason above and waiting for availability on a flight that isn’t guaranteed to board unless availability is there.
Latest Answers