The emptiest flight you've ever been on
 

I took a flight from YYC-LAX last month that was probably only about 5-10% full. It was the last flight of the night so I assume that Air Canada didn't want to cancel it just so they didn't strand the handful of us at the airport. It was rather odd being in a nearly empty aircraft for the duration of the entire flight. No one else was seated within 6 or 7 rows of us.

It got me thinking, what's the emptiest flight you've ever been on? It seems like lately it's become the standard to just cancel severely underbooked flights and reshuffle the passengers to other flights, so empty flights like this are becoming a rarity. Does anyone have any unique experiences regarding flights like this?

I had some Thanksgiving flights in the 90s with 5 passengers (2 in F, 3 in Y), and a few others with single digits. SJC-ORD.

LAX - Singapore
 

In February 09, at the height of financial crisis. This is an all business class flight but the A340 was eerily quiet with about 30 passengers on board.

Combine that with the fact the interior is like an office full of cubicles, the only people I really saw for 17 hours were the FAs

Once took a night flight on AA in 1987, LGA-YYZ...entire 727 (ahhh..remember those?) and only 2 pax, including me. FA said most of the revenue was cargo, and the plane had to be moved to YYZ for the morning run.

Never had anything like that since. Closest was earlier this year on WN, LAS to PHX at 10pm on a Thursday...maybe 15 of us.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8310/4.5.0.110 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/102)

9/11/02 AF CDG - ATL, 5 or 6 in F and maybe 30 in C.

Flying Solo
 

I was scheduled to fly MQT to DTW on a Saab 340. Due to Wx the flight was delayed and then cancelled. Several hours later they decided the plane needed to return to MSP so they let me fly with them and were able to get me to my destination (IND, I think).

early 80's late PM flight from ATL to BOS - DL 727 - I was the ONLY passenger on the entire plane. only time that's ever happened for me flying commercial.

Last May, I was the only passenger on a regional aircraft flying back from Jyvaskyla to Helsinki. ;)

twice only passanger on a Beech 1900

TCB-MIA before the holidays when everyone was going to the island I was living on, and I was leaving it, and a year later MIA-TCB after the holidays, when I was the only person returning home, while everyone else was lined up to leave the island.

In both cases, Continental ran the flight with just me on it, because at the other end, there was a full load waiting

1 pax (me!) on a Dash-8-300 YYJ-YVR in Oct/09. There was Wx IRROPS and all the booked passengers had been moved to earlier flights. I remained on my original flight, which left almost 2 hours late, but it was fun catching up with an FA I hadn't seen for a while.

BOS-HPN on an AA Saab-340 in September, 2000. Eight passengers on board, seven of whom were my family. I feel so sorry for that other person ;)

Few years ago (Philippines) earliest morning flight on the new year day from Manila to Iloilo with PAL (Philippines Airlines), Boeing 737 (-300 or -400 (seating capacity 168)?) I'm one of the only 2 PAX on that flight. I guess the airplane was full the other way back because people are going to Manila after the New Year event. On top of that ... I followed the only other passenger (cool girl!) and I asked her: "Can I sit here?" So we sat together.

MSP-EAU on a Saab 340 (not surprisingly, these seem to be a popular choice for this thread). I was one of 4 pax on the plane (34 seats, usually they don't go above 30 passengers). Funny thing is, I was a nonrev on top of that.

Sometimes cancellation isn't an option if they need the aircraft at the destination. For example, if the aircraft was booked solid LAX -> YYZ the next morning (or wherever) then the would have needed to get it down there regardless.

7 on a NW 757 GUM-KIX flight last August. It was a newly scheduled double-daily and the one that left 1 hour late was 95% full.