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
I grew up in an airline employee family. Probably have flown on standby over 100 times. Also sorry for any formatting issues I’m on mobile.
Basically the goal is to fill the plane with paying customers (revenue customers), but sometimes not every seat is full, whether it be because the flight isn’t sold out, someone didn’t show up, missed connections, etc. These open seats allow standby passengers to get on.
There is a standby list and there is an order of priority that might vary between airlines.
Here are some examples:
-a revenue customer who missed their connection home and needs the earliest flight home might get booked on a later flight but ask to be put on standby for an earlier sold out flight with the hopes someone doesn’t show up.
-airline employees who need to get back to home base and they weren’t scheduled to work a return flight (this is called deadheading).
-airline employees traveling for leisure as a benefit of their job. They can add themselves to a standby list for a flight and generally seniority within the company plays a role in priority
-airline employees’ immediate family (spouse, children) get the same perk at most airlines
-retired airline employees get benefits for either a specified period or for life (depends on seniority when you retire). Retired employees are a lower priority than active employees on the standby list.
I’ve seen it in movies and whatnot, but is there actually a way to get super cheap tickets to faraway places just by waiting at the airport and checking with people…like last minute tickets and whatnot?
Similar to others comments I live in the Eastern US but had a lot of accounts in California. I’d book a ticket from Monday-Thursday but many times I’d finish by Wednesday evening. So I’d check if the earlier flights were full. If not I’d just go stand bye. If they were near full I’d pay the change fee to make sure to get a seat. Some places & times you can be almost certain not everyone will show up (LAX for a 5:30 flight, for example. Someone’s going to miss due to freeway traffic.)
Standby policies vary by airline
Back in the days of regulated airline fares some airlines used to actually sell standby tickets, some airlines called this “student standby”, you would buy a ticket and go to the airport and hope there were empty seats on your flight, if there weren’t you would either hang around until you got on a flight or you would keep coming back to the airport. These tickets were way cheaper than regular tickets so it was worth the inconvenience for some people. AFAIK no airline offers this kind of fare anymore and hasn’t for decades.
In modern terms when people talk about flying standby it’s means they have a ticket/reservation for a flight but they are trying to get on a different flight, either they got to the airport early and want to try getting on an earlier flight, or they missed a connection, when this happens the airline will book you a reservation on a future flight which could even be the next day or even longer (I once had a situation where my flight was canceled by the airline and the next available seat was 3 days later), if this happens you can hang around the airport and standby for what would normally be full flights and hope for a last minute cancellation or for someone else to mis-connect.
>and do people really go through all the hassle of going to an airport while having a possibility of going home?
It’s more for the case where you miss your connecting flight for whatever reason and so are stuck at the airport.
I’m not sure any of the other answers really get at your question.
Source: me, worked at an airline for 6 years and flew standby hundreds of thousands of miles on many different airlines.
Typically:
As others have said, standby isn’t something you book — it’s something you change to after booking something else, so you get through security and everything on your normal ticket. In cases where there is an earlier flight to your destination you can elect to stand-by for that flight. You keep your original flight/seat/ticket until the point where you’re “cleared” to go on the new flight. (This can also occur when your flight (A) is canceled and you’re rebooked for flight (C) because (B) is “full.” You can standby on (B), hoping to get to your destination earlier.)
For employee leisure travel:
A perk of many airlines is free/low-cost travel on a space-available basis. You book through a company portal and get a boarding pass the same as everyone else to get though security, but that doesn’t entitle you to a seat, just a place on the stand-by list. You’re prioritized below paying customers in almost all circumstances.
Overall, there were times employee travel was worth the hassle and times it wasn’t. I worked a lot during a lull in passengers and it was great then. Once things contracted and passengers came back, not so much. Lots of off-peak destinations, seasons, days of week, and flights.
If I finish a job early, then I check if there’s a flight coming back home earlier than the one I have a ticket for. If so I drop off my rental car early and head inside to ask about standby for the earlier fight. I go wait at that gate and if someone doesn’t show up by the time the doors are closing then daddy gets to come home early
So, to clarify a lot of wrong information on here.
You HAVE to have a confirmed ticket for later that day and most airlines will have standby options for earlier in the day. They usually follow the same route so direct confirmed=direct standby, or going through the same connection in case your second leg is full and you don’t get your standby spot on that and you end up taking your originally scheduled flight.
You can take checked bags however there’s a decent risk that they won’t arrive on the earlier flight and may end up on your original flight anyways.
As for overbooking and standby, if a plane holds 100 passengers and they overlook by 4 (its not 10% no airline would overbook 30 seats on a 300 seat aircraft and handle compensation for that many people) those passengers get rolled over on the next available flight or another flight that works for them usually within 24 hours at most. If you get bumped due to overbooking you are entitled to compensation via a ticket voucher usually good for a year, and if you have to overnight the airline should comp the stay, some airlines do meal vouchers as well.
With that being said, don’t try to game the system. Book your tickets as soon as you can so you don’t fuck yourself last minute. Show up early. If you have to sit around on your phone for 45 min because the line wasn’t as long as normal, its still better than missing your plane by 5 minutes.
Last but by far the most important, the people working the flight are people too. They didn’t make whatever rule, policy, or price you’re pissed off about. You can be an ass hole but that is going to get you no where. Be an adult and understand shit happens and learn to take no for an answer.
Also a lot of pilots and flight crews fly standby for vacations.
It just means basically space available!
Its awesome
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.
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