Stand-By Charges
 

Does anyone know if UAL and AA still plan to charge $100.00 to fly stand by after Jan.1?

UA dropped the fee, as of 11:30pm Sunday PST, AA has not -- check out the individual airlines chat groups for more details.

Please can you explain the US connotation of "standby". It has featured in several other posts. Here in the UK standby was an old ticketing method of waiting at the airport without a reservation, and if there were seats still available when everyone with reservations had checked in, which there usually were outside peak times, you got them at a cheaper than normal fare. BA used to have "standby desks" at Heathrow, with students etc hanging around. It's all gone now.

What you have in the US, with fees being sometimes charged, sems to be something different under the same name

Sorry for such a simplistic question.

No problem. On the Compuserve travel Forum we're always translating between US English and English English...

Until quite recently just about every airfare sold (in the US...) allowed the traveler to actually show up for any flight on the same day to the same destination, and if there was space on that flight the traveler could get on board and go. The way it typically would work was that a business traveler could plan for the worst case and if the meeting finished earlier he/she could show up whenever and get on a flight home, or the leisure traveler could buy a cheaper ticket for the 9:30 PM departure but show up for the more convenient 6PM flight. The fare rule usually would state something about "same-day standby" being permitted.

The airlines went along with this, because by putting the passenger onto an otherwise empty seat the airline avoided the liabilities that would occur if the later flight was cancelled or oversold.

This year many airlines have tried to create a differentiation between leisure (non-refundable) fares and business (refundable and changeable) fares in order to get at least some people to pay more for a ticket than they otherwise would have. If USAirways wasn't the first, they were among the first to impose the restriction that passengers flying on most non-refundable fares couldn't just show up for another flight and get on, even if there was space available, without paying an additional fee.

Now, United has announced that they will not impose the "standby" fee as they previously had planned to. Since they have just started a code-share alliance with USAirways, some are predicting that USAirways (at least) will be pressured to rescind their fee as well, and we will have come full circle.

AA has not issued an official announcement or press release abandoning the $100 fee, but fare rules for 2003 flights (when it was to take effect) have been amended to once again permit free sameday standby. http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttr...orum/smile.gif

pdhenryThank you very much.

Thanks to all who have responded! This is great news for those of us who like to Standby.
Lisa

Standby is fundamentally the same in the U.S. as everywhere else.

The difference is that U.S. standby fares are high rather than low. Technically, if you want to standby with your originating flight ticket on a different day, you should be charged the high walk up fare for that trip.

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[This message has been edited by AllanJ (edited 12-19-2002).]

[This message has been edited by AllanJ (edited 12-19-2002).]

[This message has been edited by AllanJ (edited 12-19-2002).]