Travel News - Here’s Why You Don’t Fly Cross-Country on Standby Tickets With Kids During the Summer

Here’s Why You Don’t Fly Cross-Country on Standby Tickets With Kids During the Summer When You’re Broke (http://www.nycaviation.com/2012/08/live-at-the-airport-for-six-days-or-why-you-dont-fly-standby-with-kids-during-the-summer-when-youre-broke/#.UDWXDaNnsVA)

According to the local ABC affiliate, the Saxons got there last Wednesday night and didn’t leave until Tuesday.

Weather was great. Flights were going in and out on schedule.

But the Saxtons — Curtis the dad, Nicole the mom with Dominic and Sadee, their 4- and 13-year-old kids — were flying back to Virginia on JetBlue buddy passes. Buddy passes are vouchers that airline employees can share with family and friends, allowing them to fly for next to nothing.

Flying for almost free comes at the cost of convenience. Buddy pass users are not just flying standby, but they’re at the very bottom of the standby list. After all the regular passengers board, and then all the higher-priority standby passengers board, if there any seats left, only then are buddy pass passengers allowed onto the plane.

After reading this, my own impression is for folks in this situation to take the bus and leave the driving to us (http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r293/VIEWLINER/080128-1.jpg), to quote an ancient Greyhound commercial.

Wow! Wow! Wow! I could make so many comments, but I will keep them to myself.

Just saw this linked on Facebook. The most infuriating thing is how the ABC affiliate makes it sound like the family was somehow wronged. Almost as much as the fact that someone donated tickets and money, AFTER they had declined meal and lodging vouchers from the airport. :confused:

Sadly, I fear that the employee who provided the buddy passes may soon be out of a job...

Wow, who would have thought free passes would be at the bottom of the standby list and when flying in the summer you may have to wait for flights? It's amazing what websites pass off as "news".

Too bad, it's probably going to cost somebody their job who thought they were doing a good thing, and most certainly make the passes more restrictive.

In 1993 my wife and I used non-rev passes to go to Hawaii. On the trip to Hawaii he were bumped off one flight for a total delay of about three hours. On the trip home we were bumped off fifteen flights over a three day period. That was the last time that we used non-rev passes for vacation travel.

I watched this story on CNN this morning.... my days are worth more than the ticket cost... but I understand how it can be tough for a family of four. However, you know that going in... and should have known the loads before travelling. And, yelling to the press is not going to go well for the giftor of the buddy passes.

Funny, how United stepped in for them... United cannot help their own customers but are happy to help JetBlue's! :)

A friend of mine is a pilot for a major US-based legacy carrier. His wife is a former FA on an European carrier. They have three children (oldest is in third grade). She flew (by herself) with the kids to/from Europe last summer to visit her parents. It took them nine days to get home (five of them at JFK). This year, it only took three days.

Just saw this linked on Facebook. The most infuriating thing is how the ABC affiliate makes it sound like the family was somehow wronged. Almost as much as the fact that someone donated tickets and money, AFTER they had declined meal and lodging vouchers from the airport. :confused:

Sadly, I fear that the employee who provided the buddy passes may soon be out of a job...

It seems to me the employee is also at fault. He/she should have known that getting four people on a flight together in summer no less is basically impossible. He/she should have either known that his friend was able to travel as such or withheld giving the passes to the imbecile in the first place.

First of all Jet blue did nothing wrong and I was pleased to see the comments on the article understand that. However I am willing to bet Jet blue's facebook page is getting slammed right now by people vowing to never fly the airline again and they are horrible for stranding a family for almost a week. I can just see it.

Blame can be mixed between the family and the employee that gave the passes. I am tending to blame the employee more. According to the article this was the first time anyone in this family had ever flown in their lives so of course they don't know what to expect even if they had paid for a ticket, let alone buddy passes.

The employee shouldn't have donated the passes in the first place and will probably lose his or her job over it, if not then he or she is guaranteed to lose buddy pass privledges. Using a buddy pass is the equivalent of offering to eat leftover food from a restaurant that customers leave on the plates. You are low as dirt and you will get a seat only if all paying customers have boarded, standby pax either paid standby or irrops, deadheading crew, and only then you might be lucky if one seat is left, let alone 4.

This family didn't have the money so they shouldn't have traveled. What makes them entitled to have any sort of priority at the airport amd why should non rev trump a paying passenger or crew that needed to be somewhere?

Yeah the family should have never traveled when they didnt have the money, but the employee should have known that giving away a buddy pass during a peak season would be hard enough for one person, let alone 4.

It seems to me the employee is also at fault. He/she should have known that getting four people on a flight together in summer no less is basically impossible. He/she should have either known that his friend was able to travel as such or withheld giving the passes to the imbecile in the first place.

I agree fully. My frustration was more about how the press chose to portray this as some sob story where JetBlue or SEA is somehow at fault. And as Dadaluma83 mentions, I can just see the kettle interwebz going wacko over this.

Wow. Just wow.

My heart goes out to those kids. They got stuck in a crappy situation by their parents.

To everyone over the age of 18 involved with the buddy passes, are you freakin' kidding me? Buddy passes in the middle of the summer, no back-up plan and then b*tching to the media about it? You don't have to be a FTer to realize that this whole situation was a really bad idea.

Mike

The family was sort of wronged. Whoever gave, or sold them, the buddy passes didn't adequately explain the issues. Six nights in the airport. Maybe someone from JetBlue could have checked bookings and politely told the family the chance of anything opening up prior to Monday was zero. I clicked on the article. A poster said this is the hardest flight to use a buddy pass. One flight a day. There are sometimes 40 passengers on the standby list. It sounds like it was possible they wouldn't be able to use their buddy passes for weeks.

The only reason the family got home is a person bought them tickets on United.

Maybe JetBlue could have politely told them there won't be tickets available for them any time in the foreseeable future. A busy restaurant tells would be customers they are fully booked and aren't accepting any walk ups.

The person who gave them the tickets should have done some homework. Told them the passes wouldn't work for them.

It's easy to blame the parents. Sounds like they don't fly much. Sounds like they had no idea about possible issues. I'll sort of disagree with the previous posters, I'll give most of the blame to the person who gave them passes.

The family was sort of wronged. Whoever gave, or sold them, the buddy passes didn't adequately explain the issues. Six nights in the airport. Maybe someone from JetBlue could have checked bookings and politely told the family the chance of anything opening up prior to Monday was zero. I clicked on the article. A poster said this is the hardest flight to use a buddy pass. One flight a day. There are sometimes 40 passengers on the standby list. It sounds like it was possible they wouldn't be able to use their buddy passes for weeks.

The only reason the family got home is a person bought them tickets on United.

Maybe JetBlue could have politely told them there won't be tickets available for them any time in the foreseeable future. A busy restaurant tells would be customers they are fully booked and aren't accepting any walk ups.

The person who gave them the tickets should have done some homework. Told them the passes wouldn't work for them.

It's easy to blame the parents. Sounds like they don't fly much. Sounds like they had no idea about possible issues. I'll sort of disagree with the previous posters, I'll give most of the blame to the person who gave them passes.

Yes, I'll give you the point that the person who provided the passes should have also imparted some knowledge on the family (or not given them passes that they could have guessed would be this difficult to use).

However, I find it hard to side with a parent who would let their 4 year old child get hungry to the point of needing paramedics called to the airport simply because they didn't want to leave the airport for fear of missing a once-a-day flight.

I understand they wanted to get home, airport food is expensive/nasty, and money is tight. But if it's a matter of my kid not being able to bathe, sleep, or eat enough to stay upright, the level to which I care about drilling up a credit card balance, overdrafting a bank account, or almost anything else is relatively inconsequential.

Most airports have some kind of traveler's aide. I'm sure they could have helped out with getting the kids fed in an emergency situation. It sounds like to me this idiot wanted his 15 minutes of fame and was willing to put his kids in peril to do so. Kind of like the imbecile a few years back that faked his kid going up in an air balloon to try to get on a reality tv show.

The family was sort of wronged. Whoever gave, or sold them, the buddy passes didn't adequately explain the issues.

But we don't know if that is really the case. How many times Lewis have we seen people who read what they want to read, or hear what they want to hear, setting aside the factual information and instead going for the pixiedust option? I've seen you called a big poopyhead many times for your stance on Skybus and Spirit for instance, even when you were right.

I'm not familiar with buddy passes from JetBlue, but isn't there usually some sort of written documentation when one accepts these types of 'gifts' from people in the industry?

I tend to agree that the employee may be out of a job, but I won't be blaming him right now as we don't know what really happened. The actions or lack of action on the part of the parents is odd, however. Then again, there are people who do just sit back and wait, and take zero responsibility for themselves, and have no initiative. But when it involves a 4 year old and hunger to the point of paramedics being involved, I have to question the judgement of the parents.

Call me a cynic....

I recall last year there was the passanger stuck in SFO because of a check baggage fee for something like 7 or 8 days. It was reported but wasnt the full story.


Personally I am surprised the airline even offers this as a benefit.

What happens if the employee uses this then cant get back to their job because they cant get a flight?

I think a better allocation of this would be to give them passes that have limited availability but they can book prior to their flights even commence and thus are confirmed passangers on these flights.

Why didn't they leave the airport after the flight departed each day? If there was only one flight per day, staying overnight wasn't going to help them. I can understand getting there early each day, but not camping out in hopes that some JetBlue employee was going to wake them at 2am and sprinkle some magic on them.

Why didn't their family in SLC bring them food? Why didn't they contact them to tell them they were 'stranded'? Why didn't they split up into 3 groups (one adult, the teen, and one adult plus child) to increase the chances?

There are too many questions here and not enough answers. Even the most clueless traveller must have some idea that 'free flights' has some restrictions, and certainly if they were buddy pass flights I would think that there was some restriction or information given. (Does JetBlue for instance have any rules about dress code for travel on a buddy pass?) Surely the fact that they were not confirmed for a flight home was some indication that there were limits on these passes.

because they didn't want to leave the airport for fear of missing a once-a-day flight.

I understand they wanted to get home, airport food is expensive/nasty, and money is tight. But if it's a matter of my kid not being able to bathe, sleep, or eat enough to stay upright, the level to which I care about drilling up a credit card balance, overdrafting a bank account, or almost anything else is relatively inconsequential.


I agree with most of your post. FT is filled of people who know the fine points of ticketing and rules better then airline employees (at least it seems that way). A "regular" person is taught if you leave you lose your place in line. The idea that your ticket guarantees you will always be at the end of the line may have been lost.
But we don't know if that is really the case. How many times Lewis have we seen people who read what they want to read, or hear what they want to hear, setting aside the factual information and instead going for the pixiedust option? I've seen you called a big poopyhead many times for your stance on Skybus and Spirit for instance, even when you were right.

I'm not familiar with buddy passes from JetBlue, but isn't there usually some sort of written documentation when one accepts these types of 'gifts' from people in the industry?

I tend to agree that the employee may be out of a job, but I won't be blaming him right now as we don't know what really happened. The actions or lack of action on the part of the parents is odd, however. Then again, there are people who do just sit back and wait, and take zero responsibility for themselves, and have no initiative. But when it involves a 4 year old and hunger to the point of paramedics being involved, I have to question the judgement of the parents.

Jet Blue has 3 flights a day out of Salt Lake City, 1 to JFK and 2 to LGB. People who've posted in blogs said the flights go out full with rev passengers standing by. They say this is one airport you should almost never try a buddy pass. Based on what I've read there was no reason to explain anything other then to say "my free tickets won't work from Salt Lake City". I'll be happy to give you "buddy passes". Tell me what other cities you're considering and I'll find out if they might work.

I question the judgement of the parents but I don't know what options they had. If they were staying with friends or family I would have left the airport then re-grouped.

edited to add: I checked. Tonight s flight to JFK will accept a reservation for 2 passengers. The family is going to Virgina. I didn't check on connecting flights.

Call me a cynic....

I recall last year there was the passanger stuck in SFO because of a check baggage fee for something like 7 or 8 days. It was reported but wasnt the full story.


Personally I am surprised the airline even offers this as a benefit.

What happens if the employee uses this then cant get back to their job because they cant get a flight?

I think a better allocation of this would be to give them passes that have limited availability but they can book prior to their flights even commence and thus are confirmed passangers on these flights.


A employee uses passes at his/her own risk. Plenty of airline employees every year go and get stuck--but many more don't. I have flown about 200 nonrev flights so far this year and I haven't had one problem. Sure, I can't predict a CX, MX, or weather but I can use common sense to determine if it's a good idea or not.

Matter of the fact: You don't go on a vacation on buddy passes without knowing the risks. Maybe the employee didn't explain it to them but even if he/she didn't, it's still not completely the employees fault. More options are available to get back and if they are broke and can't afford them then that just backs up why you don't travel with your family when out of money.

This story is just a dumb parental choice to travel that is being spun by the media.

Lewis, I'm still not convinced. :p

The responsibility is shared. People hear what they want to hear. No many how many times we say here that one doesn't get upgraded for dressing nicely, or being on a honeymoon, someone else will come along and say that they were upgraded for dressing nicely, or on their honeymoon. That one instance for some people becomes the 'norm'. Then they write 'travel articles' for Frommers or similar, citing that as an example of how to get an upgrade.

If I told you over and over and over again that getting a room at the Starwood Friends and Family rate in Venice during carnival was impossible, and then you managed to book a night, I don't believe that you would gloat and say that I was wrong and that it was 'proof' of something. But many people would see it that way, and would think 'Well, LEWIS got a room during carnival at that discount, so I can too'.

We don't know the relationship between the family and the 'buddy', but the 'buddy' may not have realised how completely clueless and lacking in life skills the parents appear to be.

If anything, this is a lesson to anyone in the industry to guard those benefits even closer and not to hand out passes or discounts freely. There was at least one recent incident on FT where someone burned his sponsor by badmouthing the hotel on TripAdvisor, and that person too didn't want to hear us say that he was putting his sponsor in jeopardy.

Virtually every poster on FT, and other boards, think the Jet Blue employee who gave the family the passes will either lose their access to passes or might even be terminated.

That suggests the employee was wrong. Shouldn't have given them to a family so clueless. Shouldn't have given them to a family planning on using them from a city where availability is so poor.

exbayern--Big difference. I check availabilty for a Starwood hotel online. Something is available I book it and forward the confirmation email to my friend.. It doesn't matter how hard it is to get a reservation. Either you get it or you don't. You don't get it you can either not take your trip or book another hotel. Family was stuck in Salt Lake City with no available flights in the foreseeable future.

This was posted as a comment on one of the blogs:
As a JetBlue employee who travels frequently to (and from) SLC I can tell you that once daily flight to JFK is without question JetBlue's hardest flight to pass ride on. I battle to get on with employee priority and more often than not, don't. Buddy pass riders don't stand a chance. Many nights there are upwards of 40 people on the standby list with just a handful of unsold seats. Imagine 2,100 JetBlue employees in SLC all jockeying for a few seats on a once daily flight. It's a nightmare, but that's how the pass riding game is played, and the employee who gave them the buddy passes should have known that. I don't give buddy passes to my SLC friends and family because there's no point.

Virtually every poster on FT, and other boards, think the Jet Blue employee who gave the family the passes will either lose their access to passes or might even be terminated.

That suggests the employee was wrong. Shouldn't have given them to a family so clueless. Shouldn't have given them to a family planning on using them from a city where availability is so poor. I absolutely agree that the employee may lose his job as a result of the family's behaviour.

I don't agree however that he was wrong however for the act of giving them passes. Again, we don't know what transpired, or the relationship. He may have used poor judgement in giving them to this particular family which is so obviously lacking in common sense, but the act of giving them passes isn't grounds for termination. If anything, his poor judgement in giving them to this particular family is what will result in termination.

My hotel example was to show how people latch on to false hope. I can link threads here where a FTer who is a 'writer' for a travel website writes 'articles' also published in USA Today proclaiming that if one dresses nicely, one will be upgraded. Another FTer who is a former FA agrees with him. Most of us here would respond with :rolleyes: (and did) Yet there are other FTers who think that what they are saying is in fact true, and now believe that they will be upgraded if they dress nicely, or if it is their birthday.

Not everyone shares our common sense and critical thinking skills. :p

We have something similar in the Military: Space-A travel.

In a nut shell you sign up and if there is space on a plane, you can travel. There is a huge pecking order for priority with Emergency travel at the top and retired military at the bottom and all sorts of other priorities in between.

A few years ago we chased space-a flights all up and down the East coast. From CHS to McGuire AFB in NJ to BWI. Drove that over a period of a couple days with 3 kids in the car. When we arrived at BWI we saw several families who we knew that were trying to get back to Germany. They had been trying to get out for almost a week. Since I was the active duty member, and they were traveling without the sponsor we got out that night. Those we knew caught up with us about three days later.

Ya roll the dice, things like this happen.

Oh, here is a picture of the luxery that awaits in the back of a C-17:

http://www.baseops.net/spaceatravel/c17_spacea1.jpg

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/jetblue-trueblue/1380388-family-stuck-slc-6-days-no-seats-their-buddy-passes.html

1) Family had issues on the way to SLC and ended up flying to LAS and renting a car. That should have given them a hint to prepare for similar situation on the way home and to prepare.

2) The email with the buddy pass clearly outlines the conditions of using the pass, including appropriate behaviour.

The family certainly shares a large part of the responsibility for what occurred.

The family was sort of wronged. Whoever gave, or sold them, the buddy passes didn't adequately explain the issues. Six nights in the airport.
It's unfair to blame the employee, although the employee will probably bear the consequences. Some people hear what they want to hear and read what they want to read. We don't know if the employee did not explain or if the family didn't think they would have to wait for that long.
Maybe someone from JetBlue could have checked bookings and politely told the family the chance of anything opening up prior to Monday was zero. I clicked on the article. A poster said this is the hardest flight to use a buddy pass. One flight a day. There are sometimes 40 passengers on the standby list. It sounds like it was possible they wouldn't be able to use their buddy passes for weeks.Maybe JetBlue could have politely told them there won't be tickets available for them any time in the foreseeable future. A busy restaurant tells would be customers they are fully booked and aren't accepting any walk ups.
Despite all the comments people have made, stand-by pax do find seats. Why? Because there is no way to predict whether any seats, not to mention a specific number of seats will become available. The agent is in a difficult position too. What if the agent had told them, there would be no seats the next day, and the family skipped the day only to find out there were seats available on the day they skipped!
The person who gave them the tickets should have done some homework. Told them the passes wouldn't work for them. It's easy to blame the parents. Sounds like they don't fly much. Sounds like they had no idea about possible issues. I'll sort of disagree with the previous posters, I'll give most of the blame to the person who gave them passes.
When something bad happens, it's not necessary to blame someone. It just happens due to a combination of a number of factors-- only one flight a day, summer season, and the passes having the last priority. One doesn't have to be a frequent flyer to know that there is a risk of not finding seats on a given flight. We don't know whether or not the employee warned the family. Maybe the employee was inexperienced too.
There is no point passing blame around. The family gambled and made the wrong bet.
Based on what I've read there was no reason to explain anything other then to say "my free tickets won't work from Salt Lake City". I'll be happy to give you "buddy passes". Tell me what other cities you're considering and I'll find out if they might work.
I don't now if the family was explained. I do know that there are people who cannot assess risk when it comes to a freebie.
Some people don;t want to hear the truth. They try to make the employee feel guilty for not being generous with the pass. I am not saying this is what happened, but that's a possibility too.
My great grand father worked for one of the railroad companies. He was a Station Master at a major city. His brother-in-law asked for the former's family pass, which was meant only for his immediate family. His brother-in-law was not authorised to use it. My great grand father told him he could not give him the pass, but would buy his ticket, which embarrassed the brother-in-law. To make the long story short, after a lot of guilt trips and questions about his loyalty to his family, my great grand father did reluctantly let the B-i-L have the pass. The B-i-L was caught, and my great grand father lost his job.
It was my great grand father's fault that he allowed an unauthorised person to use his pass. In this case, there was no formal barrier to the family using buddy passes. It's not fair to blame the employee.
I question the judgement of the parents but I don't know what options they had. If they were staying with friends or family I would have left the airport then re-grouped.
Sometimes there are no better options when you have taken a risky stand. You don't go on vacation to a place from where you can't find alternate means to return home. That's common sense.
A similar situation could have developped on a paid ticket too due to bad weather.
edited to add: I checked. Tonight s flight to JFK will accept a reservation for 2 passengers. The family is going to Virgina. I didn't check on connecting flights.
You do know outcomes of each event, i.e. checking availability on flights, are mutually independent.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/jetblue-trueblue/1380388-family-stuck-slc-6-days-no-seats-their-buddy-passes.html

1) Family had issues on the way to SLC and ended up flying to LAS and renting a car. That should have given them a hint to prepare for similar situation on the way home and to prepare.

2) The email with the buddy pass clearly outlines the conditions of using the pass, including appropriate behaviour.

The family certainly shares a large part of the responsibility for what occurred.

Some people are stupid. Some a clueless. Some like to "play games" and hope for the best. Bottom line. They got free airfare home. Got treated like martyrs in the media. Maybe they're happy. Spending that many nights in the airport isn't my idea of a good way to get free stuff.

This new information suggests someone should have suggested the family rent the car for their entire vacation and drive back to LAS to catch a flght. No matter what thread you read the Jet Blue employees all say there are enough standbys with priority to fill any empty seats. Person who gave them the buddy passes should have done some checking regarding SLC loads. The Jet Blue employees who routed them to SLC should have given them a heads up regarding their return.

based solely upon the comments by some here that the generous employee who gave the buddy passes to a family that might otherwise not have had a chance to travel ...

NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED.

Therefore, in the future,

don't be generous because you never know when it might come back to bite you in the rear
STRICTLY adhere to the letter of the law/rule/regulation so you might have some sembelence of a defense if said rear biting occurs



On a personal note:

I know that people are not all knowing but, really, can anyone seriously think that they can travel for free by airplane without some serious restrictions??

Oh, here is a picture of the luxery that awaits in the back of a C-17:

http://www.baseops.net/spaceatravel/c17_spacea1.jpg

Lookit all that legroom!

Sorry...had to say it. Back on topic, I think it should be clarified that the JetBlue employee's issue is likely not that they gave out the buddy pass, or even that the family had these issues. But rather that as a result, the airline is getting a fair amount of less-than-favorable press for it.

Even if they are fully within the rules of the buddy pass, there's likely a clause in their employment policies that allows for reprimand or termination if they cause damage to the company.

Person who gave them the buddy passes should have done some checking regarding SLC loads. The Jet Blue employees who routed them to SLC should have given them a heads up regarding their return.

And maybe they did... we just don't know.

And maybe they did... we just don't know.

OK more then a heads up.

Assume the JetBlue agent didn't help route them on their outgoing flight(s). The family would have gone home and not taken the trip.

Assume their "friend" did his homework and discovered buddy passes don't work out of SLC. The "friend" politely changes his mind and said I'm sorry my tickets won't work for you.

We're not even addressing the issue of what the family would do if only 1 or 2 seats were available.

Go to a packed restaurant. You're told we're fully booked and aren't accepting any walk ups. The diner is told to go home not wait and hope for a bunch of no shows.

Go to a packed restaurant. You're told we're fully booked and aren't accepting any walk ups. The diner is told to go home not wait and hope for a bunch of no shows.

And you've seen WDW where people refuse to accept that and still hang around waiting for a table.

I can think offhand of two FTers who I am sure seem to be pleasant enough in person, and who consider themselves frequent and maybe even exprienced travellers. But if 1,000 people here tell them the sky is blue, they will insist that it is red. I can think of two more FTers who often come along and say 'when I worked for my last company on Mars 37 years ago I only dealt with the sea, and the sea is purple. But based on that, I agree with you that on Earth the sky is red'. No matter how many ways we try and convince certain people, they won't hear what we have to say.

I'm sure that the JetBlue employee is having a rather 'DOH!' moment right now and I'm still curious about the relationship. Most people appear to be 'normal' in real life on the surface level, but that doesn't mean that they will behave normally in other situations.

(Aren't you glad that you invited me to this thread?! ;) )

I travelled on a "buddy pass" once, about 15 years ago. I doubt I'll ever do it again.

My girlfriend's father at that time was a mechanic for United Airlines. He offered to give me a pass so that I could travel from SFO to PHL for a long weekend.

I managed to do it, but I was a nervous wreck all the time. In ORD I was left behind on the standby list twice before I finally got on a flight to PHL.

And that was when planes regularly had empty seats. It's much worse today, I'm sure.

After reading this, my own impression is for folks in this situation to take the bus and leave the driving to us (http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r293/VIEWLINER/080128-1.jpg), to quote an ancient Greyhound commercial.

As a military retiree, I have space-available travel privileges on military aircraft that are roughly analogous to a non-rev pass in the civilian world (except I can't lend those privileges). Everyone has a higher priority than retirees. If space ain't A, you're gonna stay.

It can end up being the most expensive free flight you ever took, once you factor in the one-way walk-up fare to get home to your duty assignment/life. Most of us know this and plan accordingly, and I'm sure most people in the civilian airline industry do the same.

Both military space-A privileges and non-rev passes are best used by those who know the system and who have realistic expectations and at least one backup plan. Those were not evident in this story.

As a military retiree, I have space-available travel privileges on military aircraft that are roughly analogous to a non-rev pass in the civilian world (except I can't lend those privileges). Everyone has a higher priority than retirees. If space ain't A, you're gonna stay.

It can end up being the most expensive free flight you ever took, once you factor in the one-way walk-up fare to get home to your duty assignment/life. Most of us know this and plan accordingly, and I'm sure most people in the civilian airline industry do the same.

Both military space-A privileges and non-rev passes are best used by those who know the system and who have realistic expectations and at least one backup plan. Those were not evident in this story.

This. As I said before - I fly on nonrev flights multiple times a week and have not had one issue all year. It's a great system if you know how to use it.

This. As I said before - I fly on nonrev flights multiple times a week and have not had one issue all year. It's a great system if you know how to use it.

The bottom line for me is that the family could have bought tickets at any time. They didn't have to wait, they choose to because they didn't want to pay.

My guess is that they simply had a misunderstanding of the magnitude of the risk. The employee thought he was warning them that they might not be able to get a flight for a while, and the family thought it was just some sort of a legal disclaimer that they could ignore.

After all, just about every gate at every airport in the country has signs warning you that your flight may be overbooked and you are not guaranteed a seat even if confirmed. The family may have interpreted the friend's warning as something like that.

The bottom line for me is that the family could have bought tickets at any time. They didn't have to wait, they choose to because they didn't want to pay.

I completely agree. Don't know why they also couldn't have called up the friend and asked for load numbers. Would have saved them time.

The bottom line for me is that the family could have bought tickets at any time. They didn't have to wait, they choose to because they didn't want to pay.

From what I've read they just didn't have the money. Hence the benefactor who stepped in without expecting repayment. I don't want to sound harsh, but it makes you wonder why people with no means contemplate cross-country travel in the first place.

From what I've read they just didn't have the money. Hence the benefactor who stepped in without expecting repayment. I don't want to sound harsh, but it makes you wonder why people with no means contemplate cross-country travel in the first place.

exactly my thinking, sounds like this family had NO expectation of anything going wrong except we're talking flying and they proceeded across country without so much a thought as what IF something goes wrong what do we do

.........not all buddy passes are free. They're a reduced rate of travel.

This. As I said before - I fly on nonrev flights multiple times a week and have not had one issue all year. It's a great system if you know how to use it.

THIS!
My father is in the airline industry and during the time that I was eligible I routinely took advantage of flying for free.

It was much easier before all the airlines reorganized to be flying fuller flights. If you booked unpopular routes and times it was never a problem getting where you need to in a timely manner. It came though with the understanding that on any given flight you could be left standing there. Doing your homework helps and so does having multiple back up plans. You have to keep your cool and know how the system works to take advantage of it.

I wouldn't do this anymore unless I had to though, airlines got smart and most flights are going out pretty full these days, I'd rather pay for a flight than deal with the stress of airport hopping and waiting for seats.

My aunt and uncle often use some type of pass thing when flying on Delta as their daughter is a pilot for them. But they know there may be wait times or they have to wait for a later flight back home as examples & generally use them for pleasure trips mainly. My uncle if he has to fly to a job site, I am sure he will pay on the way there to be on time for the work site, and use his pass on the way back if he knows he has time to spare. At least they use some common sense.

Oh, here is a picture of the luxery that awaits in the back of a C-17:

http://www.baseops.net/spaceatravel/c17_spacea1.jpg

Lookit all that legroom!


That looks more comfortable than the average commercial flight in cattle-car class these days...