Flying Standby Isn’t a Piece of Cake

You haven't seen a tree until you've seen its shadow from the sky.  ~Amelia Earhart

 

Sabrina’s family has planned a family reunion in the Dallas area for quite some time.  The reunion was scheduled over Father’s Day weekend.  It was a reunion and a celebration.  Her grandparents will be celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary.  As she said not everyone can say they’ve been married 60 years.  However, with Father’s day and school getting out …. it’s a rotten time if the plan is to fly anyplace.  Flying standby over any special day can be tough because more people are out there flying too.

We started watching the flights for availability several weeks before departure date.  A month ago the flights were open.  Of course, they were but we knew the closer we got to the departure date, the tighter the flight would get.  By the Sunday before there were only ten open seats available all day.  Some folks usually drop off and others purchase those last minute tickets.  Then, we also knew more yet would be standing by for those same flights.

Flying standby can be a real pain. Why do people do it?  It’s simple. It’s the $$$. Depending how often you want to fly that could be a savings of big bucks.  As long as you have plenty of time and know how it works, it’s really not a bad thing. At departure time, standby passengers are accommodated according to their priority and time of check in.   It’s broken down into two categories – revenue and non-revenue standbys. There are many other classifications in each of those categories. The non-revenue standbys are employees of that airline, friends/family of employees and on to employees of other airlines in that order.

Grandkids grew up knowing there was a difference between first class and last class.  Obviously, they preferred first class because they got food.       -- >

DC bound for Michael and Justin

Usually there aren’t a lot of standbys for each flight unless travel is during peak season to a very popular destination. Flying out of large airports where there are many flights usually is easier than a smaller airport with fewer flights. If you don’t make your intended flight, the gate agent will usually just roll you over to the next one. Over the years we’ve spent many a night at airports around the world but we also made most of our flights.  The ones we didn’t make are the ones we remember.   We’ve been bumped from flights enroute and had to be creative to get to our destination. It’s not a fun thing to do. Matter of fact, sometimes it got to be downright scary. Obviously, that wasn’t going to happen here especially since there was only one leg of the flight.

I listed Sabrina and Jordan for the first flight early Thursday morning. Our fingers were crossed because it didn’t look good. When I have folks traveling on tickets I have provided, I have to be alert and available all day.  Well, I don’t have to be but I feel I do. I watch the flights, the standby list and stress until they are on that plane and the plane has actually taken off. The gate agents may be pretty efficient with loading revenue passengers but sometimes not so efficient with the employees and their family.  Family and friends fly at a much lower priority than employees.  That’s what makes it more difficult.  We used to give away all my extra flights and also those Terry earned as a million mile club member in his working days.  However, now we don't.  We just let them expire.   Too much stress on my part.

As an employee standby passenger, one also has to be dressed appropriately for any seat in any cabin. Jeans and tennis shoes are allowed in coach but not in other cabins. Thus, if there just happened to be one seat available in first and you weren’t dressed according to the dress code, you aren’t given that seat. You’d just be rolled over to the next flight. However, there is a huge advantage to this. Most of our international travel used to be planned according to flight loads and empty seats in first class. Thus, those empty $7,000 one-way international tickets … were open to us and that’s just how we were normally lucky even to fly. It’s not the same today. Most planes have exchanged what used to be first class seats for more business seats in their place. Those are great but not as great as the first class seats used to be. It was being a poor soul getting a view at how the rich and famous traveled. We loved it obviously.

Examples of first class international accommodations – 7-course gourmet meals, private accommodations and a bed!

Wednesday morning arrived and I was sitting at the computer at 6:00 AM ready to check Sabrina and Jordan in for their flight.  Check in can occur 24 hours advance of a flight.  First on the list are the first to fly in their category so we try to check in right on the dot of 24 hours.  Whee …..  now we wait to see what happens as others start checking in.  The flights look pretty impossible at this time.  Teasingly I told Sabrina to do a double dip prayer since the flights looked so bad.  Her comment, “Double dip my fanny I'm bringing holy water with us Thursday morning :-)”  That’s just about what she would need.  However, I must admit in our heavy traveling days we used to say our prayers to the non-rev Gods. It actually got to be a ritual.

Once a flight was cancelled the day before we knew it wasn’t going to work for them out of Portland.  What did she do?  Sabrina and Jordan drove to Seattle to catch a flight there.  They don’t have the option of flying on another airline like employees do.  This was just about the only way they were going to get to Texas.  After a two hour drive to their intended flight they were given seats on the plane.  They are now on their way to their reunion.  THANK GOODNESS!!  Now it’s time to worry about Lee.    I’m not so sure that’s going to happen.  This is one reunion he may just miss.  If he doesn’t make the flight,  we will pick up him after the last flight and return him to the airport the next day to try again.  However, we still need to get Sabrina and Jordan back from Texas.  Those flights look good though.

‘Tis life in the air.