Empty planes this past week?
 

I did that cheap HKG flight from ORD last week, as a mileage run/mini vacation. I've never seen so many empty seats on multiple flights. I know February is slow, but I've never seen an ATL-MCO flight empty.



Tuesday 2/7
MCO-JFK Went out with 3 empty seats in F, after NonRevs were cleared. I would say total load was 60%-70%
https://s22.postimg.cc/lmuecigtd/Sc...207_135343.png
JFK-ORD Only flight without empty seat in F. Probably 70% load.

Wednesday 2/8
ORD-SEA On Alaska, 90% load.
SEA-HKG Probably around 85% load.

Monday 2/13
HKG-SEA Load was around 25% if I had to guess. I was jealous of those in Y who had all 4 middle seats to themselves while I was in bulkhead Y+ without a neighbor.
SEA-ORD On Alaska, looked to be oversold.
ORD-ATL MD88, 3-4 empty in F. Maybe 20 people total in Y. Load factor probably less than 20%.
ATL-MCO A321. Person at gate was asking to change seat. Gate agent said not to worry, there are 140 empty seats on the flight. That means a load factor of 27%.

I know that a sample size of n=<10 flights doesn't exactly make for a trend, but to add one more to the list, my BDL-ATL flight tonight was probably only 65% full, at best; whereas otherwise, I can't remember the last time I saw an open seat on the route.

I've noticed this as well. I just flew BMI-ATL and there were probably 30 people on a CR9. My return appears to have about 30 people as well on a 717. I imagine this is just the sweet spot right now between winter vacation and spring break, but I don't really know.

Maybe people taking off the week from travel for Valentine's Day?

Spring break travel season starts ramping up this week with President's Day weekend (a traditional mid-winter break for many school's in the north). We're still at the tail-end of the post-holiday's travel lull.

Too bad I'm not chasing status anymore. This is prime MR time.

I noticed it two weeks ago that my flights were pretty empty as well (less than 50% load)

Just correcting that for you.

Supposedly international bookings to the US are way down for some reason...

Hmmm, I wonder why that could be?

Well they're way down from 7 countries at least.

But now we're getting into OMNI territory.

Heck, even international flights on international airlines have been slow. I understand how QR could be offering J RT US-SIN for 1.7k now. I had entire back cabin to self on 777 and A350 both ways. Recent CX flight to US had 1 in F, maybe 15 in J and less then 25% in Y.

Interesting, although in my experience MCO-JFK is about the easiest upgrade in the system. I've never not been upgraded even as a silver. Most of the time a couple of NRSA will even clear onto F on that flight. It makes up for the horrific odds on MCO-SLC/LAX unless it's a Saturday. SLC is very peculiar.

This. ^

I flew delta in august last year, DL4 JFK-FRA, and there were no more than 50ppl in Y, B764 :)

On 2/13, I flew JFK-SLC-PDX. Both flights were nearly half empty, but F was sold out. I ended up #4 and #2 on the upgrade list, respectively, as a Diamond with reserve card.