Standby/last minute flights

Fred Swanson

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Bussywussy

Fred Swanson wrote: »

If you turn up randomly at the airport is it possible to buy last minute tickets on flights that have empty seats? Not caring on destination etc.

Or is it a case they would rather alone a seat fly empty than sell it for a discount?

They just won't sell it for a discount me thinks....

jjbrien

This practice ended a long time ago airlines are very good at yield management these days, best to book in advance or look at last minute websites for deals

Fred Swanson

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Wood

They can use empty seats to shuttle staff to various destinations to provide cover depending on illness/wocl rest guidelines. Cancelled flights can have their crew sent somewhere else to help out etc.

Locker10a

Most airlines, any I’ve dealt with allow staff to book standby tickets, normally for next to nothing, I think just paying the tax?! But guess it depends.
Obviously this wouldn’t work for the general public, you’d have masses of passengers turning up at airports trying to get free seats for almost nothing and chaos would ensue. Can’t ever see airlines opting for that when they can with the current system easily predict the revenue each flight will earn for them and adjust schedules/prices to reflect demand and profit.

EIREDriver

Airlines usually overbook so as to avoid empty seats. Empty seats hold no value at all to them apart from if they need to move staff like previous poster said. An empty seat due to a passenger not showing up represents a missed opportunity to double the revenue on that seat by selling it again.

Low load factors are a worst nightmare for airlines. If they schedule a flight, they'll have the same overheads on that flight regardless of how many seats are empty.

jester77

Locker10a wrote: »

Most airlines, any I’ve dealt with allow staff to book standby tickets, normally for next to nothing, I think just paying the tax?! But guess it depends.
Obviously this wouldn’t work for the general public, you’d have masses of passengers turning up at airports trying to get free seats for almost nothing and chaos would ensue. Can’t ever see airlines opting for that when they can with the current system easily predict the revenue each flight will earn for them and adjust schedules/prices to reflect demand and profit.

yip, the ID90 system gives you tickets at 10% and you pay all the taxes on top of that. I used to work for an airline and it's a nice perk, Friday afternoon log into the system, see which flights were below 110% capacity and turn up at the airport to purchase a ticket and off you go. Getting back was sometimes an issue depending on destination.

A lot of the airports have travel agents with last minute deals, ideally turn up with 2 cases if you don't know where you want to go (warm weather/cold weather), get your ticket, put the second case in storage and pick it up when you return.

scudzilla

Think the OP means something like this from Tui in the UK
https://www.tui.co.uk/flight/deals

Fly to loads of destinations for 49sterling return in the next week or 2

My daughter went to Madeira last year, 50quid return flights, 40 quid for 4 nights in surf hostel and 100 quid for 3 x 3hr surf lessons, she said it was amazing and so cheap, less than 200 quid for 4 days surfing incl flights/accomodation, irony is she lives just 10 miles away from Surf Snowdonia and 3 x 3hr lessons would have cost around 150quid alone

Fred Swanson

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jjbrien

Fred Swanson wrote: »

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Depends charter airlines like Air Transat, TUI will try sell unsold seats at a discount via travel agency to have someone sitting in those seats instead of them going empty

With the staff tickets they are ID90 tickets which means a staff member can turn up wait on standby and pay 10% of the full fare to fly on that flight. Knew someone who worked for virgin but lived in Dublin she used to use the ID90 flights to get over to go to work she would only have to go once or twice a week as she worked long haul. People in my own family worked in Aer Lingus we used to get 5 confirmed tickets each year we just paid the taxes and my sister had unlimited standby flights if she just paid the 10%. But when she worked there was when Aer Lingus staff were very badly paid, so she couldnt afford go to many places.

padraig.od

jjbrien wrote: »

This practice ended a long time ago airlines are very good at yield management these days, best to book in advance or look at last minute websites for deals

What would be a good website for picking up last minute deals?

smurfjed

yip, the ID90 system gives you tickets at 10% and you pay all the taxes on top of that. I used to work for an airline and it's a nice perk

I believe that this evolved into ZED (Zonal Employee Discount) ticketing, websites such as FLYZED allow airline employees to login, check loads and buy tickets. Unfortunately you then get walloped by taxes to certain countries, so unless you are traveling last minute, its usually less hassle to buy normal tickets in advance.

kona

jjbrien wrote: »

But when she worked there was when Aer Lingus staff were very badly paid, so she couldnt afford go to many places.

When did she leave? Yesterday?

Bussywussy

kona wrote: »

jjbrien wrote: »

But when she worked there was when Aer Lingus staff were very badly paid, so she couldnt afford go to many places.

When did she leave? Yesterday?

Haha

ED E

Youtuber/Podcaster GCP Grey (https://twitter.com/cgpgrey?) regularly talks about flying standby. Apparently still a big thing in the US.

faoiarvok

ED E wrote: »

Youtuber/Podcaster GCP Grey (https://twitter.com/cgpgrey?) regularly talks about flying standby. Apparently still a big thing in the US.

They have lots of shuttle flights (multiple times daily, not into space) where people can go standby for an earlier flight if they finish up business early at their destination etc

steve-o

Mystery flights used to be common. You show up at the airport, pay a fixed (lowish) price, and the airline only tells you where you are going at the last minute.

Some airlines still do a variation of it (book online and only find out where you are going after you purchase or the day before departure).
https://www.lufthansa-surprise.com/?lang=en#opq_retrieve
https://www.airnewzealand.co.nz/air-new-zealand-mystery-breaks
http://mysterybreaks.virginaustralia.com/

basill

Not going to happen in this part of the world. Only situation I can think of is on compassionate grounds when you need to get from A to B and a duty manager approves selling you a discounted ticket. Otherwise its whatever the booking engine prices which is likely going to be market rate on the day. Good luck with getting a compassionate ticket on a bottom feeder airline as well!

If standby tickets were readily available and priced accordingly then yields would drop as people took a punt and turned up on the day. Fully flexible tickets that attract corporate travellers would also fall away. Common sense from a business stand point.

clownface95

I do allot of solo travel on my spare time. Best deal I got this year was 90 euro return Dublin to Barcelona, booked it the night before. I do think if you keep on eye on google flights you can get some good deals on rare occasions for last minute flights.

smurfjed

@clownface95 google flights ??

clownface95

Yes it’s like a google search engine that is used for booking flights. Very useful and user friendly

billie1b

basill wrote: »

Not going to happen in this part of the world. Only situation I can think of is on compassionate grounds when you need to get from A to B and a duty manager approves selling you a discounted ticket. Otherwise its whatever the booking engine prices which is likely going to be market rate on the day. Good luck with getting a compassionate ticket on a bottom feeder airline as well!

If standby tickets were readily available and priced accordingly then yields would drop as people took a punt and turned up on the day. Fully flexible tickets that attract corporate travellers would also fall away. Common sense from a business stand point.

Ryanair are very good with compassionate tickets, i’ve had a lot of pax on my flights in this situation

basill

So they carry the pax and we carry the remains then?

Fred Swanson

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Locker10a

Fred Swanson wrote: »

There was me thinking that Ryanair made a killing from last minute funeral related traffic.

Well Michael O Leary once claimed he loved Irish funerals as it meant passengers pay last minute high fares

Locker10a

basill wrote: »

So they carry the pax and we carry the remains then?

Ryanair carry remains to NOC, or the used to at least

goingnowhere

Locker10a wrote: »

Ryanair carry remains to NOC, or the used to at least

STN-NOC is the only destination FR operate, EI on most routes and also via LHR

billie1b

goingnowhere wrote: »

STN-NOC is the only destination FR operate, EI on most routes and also via LHR

They also operate into DUB with special permission

L1011

Locker10a wrote: »

Well Michael O Leary once claimed he loved Irish funerals as it meant passengers pay last minute high fares

Compassionate fares usually only apply to direct relatives; the Irish habit of throwing the coffin in to the ground with undue haste means there are often plenty of mourners who would never qualify for reduced fares.

Pat Dunne

L1011 wrote: »

Compassionate fares usually only apply to direct relatives; the Irish habit of throwing the coffin in to the ground with undue haste means there are often plenty of mourners who would never qualify for reduced fares.

What a completely crass and heartless comment to make.
The loss of a loved one is a extremely tough at the best of times. So your preference is that someone's nearest and dearest should languish on a Mortuary Slab for a forthnight or so.

Cosmo Kramer

Pat Dunne wrote: »

What a completely crass and heartless comment to make.
The loss of a loved one is a extremely tough at the best of times. So your preference is that someone's nearest and dearest should languish on a Mortuary Slab for a forthnight or so.

Completely accurate more like. The turnaround times for funerals in Ireland are absurd by international standards. A couple more days to let people orgainse things and grieve privately wouldn't hurt anyone.

Anyway, back to aviation...

Fred Swanson

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L1011

Pat Dunne wrote: »

What a completely crass and heartless comment to make.
The loss of a loved one is a extremely tough at the best of times. So your preference is that someone's nearest and dearest should languish on a Mortuary Slab for a forthnight or so.

People miss funerals of loved ones because of the undue haste. There is absolutely no reason to have funerals as quickly as we do here; and it is basically unheard of outside the Islamic world to do so.

For a country with such a large diaspora and historical emigration patterns it is very likely that there are people who will want to be at a funeral to mourn and grieve and effectively either can't or have to spend huge sums of money to do so for, what exactly? What benefit is the two to three day turnaround?

Captain_Crash

Staff travel has been mentioned a lot here. I don't work in aviation myself but because of family ties I've had staff travel my whole life, and still have it today. I can count on one hand how many times we didn't get onto a flight and the last time I used it I arrived in DUB at 5:50am, went to the ticket counter and was seated in 5A headed to LHR by 6:30am.

Although I've never used it to European destinations (excl last minute LHR) because its normally so cheap to book and have some reassurance.

Doltanian

I know four Irish American relatives of mine who recently spent close to $20,000 to come to a funeral in Kerry and the most absurd thing was they had to fly in to Belfast as it was during the huge snowfalls in the US. Crazy money but they didn't mind as they are large earners but unless it was a parent I wouldn't shell out that sort of money.