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
Airlines want to maximize how much money they make.
Passengers and luggage don’t impact how much fuel you need by as much as you think. So a totally full flight and a totally empty flight cost the airline roughly the same amount of money to run. Obviously a full flight will make them more money than an empty one, so the airline wants to have every flight be 100% full.
Airlines have figured out that some percentage of people who buy tickets don’t show up for some reason. Maybe they miss their flight, or plans change, or whatever it is.
So let’s say that the Airline figures out that, on average, 10% of people who buy a ticket don’t show up. So if they sell 100 tickets for a 100 seat plane then they’d have 10 empty seats. So, to have the flight be full, they would need to sell more tickets than there are seats. However if someone gets stranded they’d be pretty upset, so the airline sells standby tickets.
Let’s say there are 3 flights from City A to City B each day. You let someone buy a cheaper ticket on the middle flight, with the understanding that they could get bumped to that later flight if the early one is full, but could also get on the early one if a seat opens up. Essentially you’re agreeing to potentially wait around for a while in exchange for a cheaper fare.
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