Sometime in 2002, I flew LGA-PVD on USAirways Express.. it was the last flight out for that route.. only 2 people on board - me and this woman. It was when they were still doing the random security checks before boarding.. of course, it was really a 50-50 chance at that point. Luckily, I didn't get searched. :D

Normally I would have enjoyed the pseudo-private plane experience but it was a dark and stormy night, so.. kinda blah

Sometime in the mid 90's, I was flying SFO - LAX to pick-up Qantas to Melbourne. It was raining in LAX and traffic was backed up. The connection was tight. I asked the connecting carrier what my options would be if I missed the connection. She looked. Surprised, she said that there was a second flight leaving something like 90 minutes later and that it was almost empty. My assigned flight was pretty full.

We did arrive at LAX in time for a Qantas agent to try to hurry those of us connecting through secuity and onto the waiting plane. I asked if my luggage was going to be travelling with me. Probably not, was the reply. I said that I did not want to be separated from my bags, and could I wait for the next flight. Grudingly, the OK was given.

It was a brand new 7*7 extended range. I think they must just have been getting it home or something. It seated well over 300, I believe.

I had a whole cabin to myself.

Oh, it was a December 30 departure, meaning we were arriving on New Year's Day. The steward woke with an offer of champagne. Somehow in my sleepy state, I managed to say, "No, thanks. It's a little early in the year for me." :p

That was the empiest flight for me. Lovely.

Best wishes,

Teacher49

Orient Thai Airlines Boeing 747-146, C 0/16 Y36/444 on Bangkok-Phuket. Also a Finnair MD-82 with Y 7/144 on Oulu-Rovaniemi.

Yes - I had a return flight from Colorado Springs to SNA and COS was fogged in. My flight on Reno Air was cancelled and I was stuck there for six hours. About an hour after the flight was cancelled, the fog lifted and my aircraft took off with just the crew :mad:

Right after AA purchased Reno Air, I started to take the SNA-LAS route (former Reno Air route). I never saw more than 10 pax in the MD-80. The FAs wouldn't upgrade, either :mad:

circa 1980, mia-dfw on eal, there were 3 people in y [don't know about f]...we were all assigned in 1 row [def] which we found out when we boarded! we moved to aisles before the door was closed...none of us knew the others, but all were suits on business, i was going home.

Flight to Singapore about two months after 9/11. About 5 people in business class.

Z

Mine was a BA flight from LHR-LED. It was the first flight for a new day in the week. Only myself, my wife and child and 3 others were on board a B737. Very pleasant flight.

Sometime in the early seventies, I boarded an EI 747 from DUB-JFK (via SNN) with my parents. We found we were the only pax on board. 30 minutes later were were joined by 300 odd pax at SNN...

What kind of idiotic nitwit assigned you all to the same row? Can you imagine!
Rita

A flight from Orlando to Philly a week after 9/11 - about 10 people on-board....

Late 80"s....STL-SFO on UA....four pax on a 737 (all pax atteding the same meeting).

Emptiest Flight in 2004?
 

I notice that most of these posts have been from flights taken long ago. I have not flown on a very empty flight this year. It seems that Dovster's flight was one of the few.
With some airlines' tendancies to have a plane develop mechanical problems, it seems that empyt flights are few and far between.
My emptiest this year would have been an ATL-CAE flight scheduled to leave at 11:55pm arriving at 12:43am on a RJ. There were 10 of us on a delayed flight that arrived at 2:45am.

Emptiest flight of 2004 was UA224 SEA-IAD overnight. Probably about 84 people on a 757 that seats 182. Every middle in Economy was empty and a number of folks were alone in their set of three. First was full at 24.

Leaving Las Vegas
 

New Years Eve 2003 (last year) on an America West flight back to Orange County, guess everybody was going TO Las Vegas. Maybe 6 people.

A month later, morning of Superbowl Sunday,also leaving Las Vegas to SNA on America West and again maybe 6 people which would have been even less but a few people were leaving after the NFL put a clamp down the night before on televised Superbowl parties at bars who were charging for the event thus violating copyright laws, a lot of parties were cancelled (night before the Superbowl) and a few people left Las Vegas to watch elsewhere, I might have been alone on that flight were it not for the NFL!

Easter Sunday, CPH to EWR in Biz Class, there were 3 of us, but believe it or not I still did not get my first choice of entree! :mad: I was the third person asked and all that was left was the fish, I guess they only supplied enough meals for the actual number of passengers???

Feb/March '71 STL-HNL, maybe, just maybe a total of 30 people onboard. I want to say 747, but don't remember for sure. Center section was empty except for pax who moved to have full length 'laydown.' I had row of 3 to myself. I remember my one way ticket cost $300. I could have had free booze, but was too young to drink.

Nov '78 GUM-HNL L1011 - just as empty as STL-HNL flight. I did not visually verify, but my ears would testify to a couple joining mile high club in center section toward the "back of the bus." :D

LOL...sounds like we could start a whole new thread with some of those stories.....

About 1996, flying an RJ shuttle from Istanbul to Ankara one winter evening on THY. Cold and a little flying snow. Plane looked very new and sparkly. Three FA's, all young. At the boarding gate (a walk-out), thought I was at the wrong place as there was just a couple old geezers like me sitting there. Then they call the flight. Three of us.

So, as we get on board, I traipse down about halfway (only one class) and plonk in a window seat. Just before they close the door, the FA's come by and check boarding passes -- and have all three of us move to our assigned seats.

My Turkish is OK -- but one of the old Turks came up with some swear words I had never heard before.

But, they were insistent, so we did.

Leo

That was me and the stewardess I met on the flight.

Z

Empty Flights...
 

LGA-ORD on the 4th of July, a 737, only two people (1st Class)

ORD-YYZ, a 757, first flight out, right after SARS, 2 people

^ for you! The best I remember, He was a fine lookin stew too! :D ;)

J

Many years ago, I was on a Reno Air Flight which I think was a 727 or 737: Reno-DTW red eye.
Grand total passengers was 9. The FA told people to sit anywhere including FC since obviously there would be plenty of room. Oddly enough 7 people ran to the front to sit in first class. 2 others (included me) decided to lie down across 3 seats in Y. :)

Only Pax here
 

I was the only pax on a COEX B1900 flight from LEX to CLE. As I boarded, they said "Mr. Trump, your plane is ready". I stood with my head in the cockpit for about 1/2 the flight. I wish I had my PPL then.

I flew IAD-ORD-MKE on United a few days after the airports reopened after 9/11/2001.

The first leg had me, my wife and 7 other pax's on a 767
The second leg on an RJ had one other pax

Thanksgiving afternoon 1999. Allentown, PA to Detroit on a Northwest DC-9. I was living in Seattle at the time and a manager for a retail operation. So...I had to be back at work for the day after Thanksgiving. Inhaled my turkey and pumpkin pie and ran to the airport...

It was me and one other guy.

Monday 12/27 I flew USAirways CUN-PHL. Total of 11 people. Maybe everyone was scared to fly into Philadelphia and lose their luggage. I did carry-on and had a great flight!

A little one and a big one:


Little:

Christmas morning 1984, puddle jumper from Cheyenne to Denver. Me, the pilot, the co-pilot, the flight attendant. Looking back now, I'm amazed the flight wasn't cancelled.


Big:

US Air 6 am flight one lonely morning MCI-DCA around 2000 or so. Probably 5-10 people in the whole plane, half of them in first with me.

Repositioning
 

AA flight from DFW-ORD in 1998. Chicago snowstorm the night before still had things tied up earlier in the day. Missed my connection in DFW; they put me on a 9:05 flight (with a 9*** flight #)...they were repositioning a/c and decided to put a few people on board while at it. MD-80, Me and 3 others. All invited up to F to relax and enjoy free booze. Nice!

Black Friday 2001 PIT->ABE on USAir. The end of my first MR. I think their might have been a total of 10 people on the MD 80 including the crew and I think 1 or 2 FA's commutting.

Recently I flew a red eye DEN-JFK on DL. There must have been about 30 people on a 737-300 so everyone had a row to themselves with nobody behind or infront!

End of September 2001 I flew LAX-SYD on ANZ in C. A 747-400 with about 40 people on it. The return wasn't much busier.

In 98 IAD-HPN on a j31 - just the flight crew and me. I was worried they would just cancel it but there must have been pax for the return!

In the mid-80's I was on a NW itinerary from BOS to SEA, connecting in MSP. Because of schedule constraints I took a 6 am flight from BOS to MSP. It was a 747, and it was pretty obvious that the only purpose of the flight was to re-position the aircraft (I assume for an int'l flight). As I recall, there were only two other passengers! The service was fine, but they didn't invite us into FC :(

When I was about 15 I was flying to a friend's New Years eve party -- from MSY to Montgomery, AL. the southeast got fogged in and I ended up spending the night at DL's expense in Jackson, MS. Early the next morning I was the only passenger on a DL or PA DC-8 to MSY that had landed in Jackson the night before. At that time DL and PA had an interchange to Europe (London, I think). I believe that it was PA equipment and picked up a DL crew in either WAS of NYC for the domestic leg. This was in the mid-1960s.
tom

I've had a few:

1996 - HYA-ACK. Just the pilot, me and my pal, with about 15 bicycles for the 15 min hop over nantucket sound. I sat in the co-pilot seat of the cessna 402 (as I always tried to do on those Island Air flights).

1999 LHR-EDI. Myself and a colleague seemed to be the only two pax in the back of a 767 on the shuttle run. We had flown in from SFO and been assigned seats together, but quickly spread out. Due to the vast amounts of booze we had consumed on the earlier leg, I can't really remember the details, but we must have done something right as we both staggered of with duty free bags full of minatures and mixers provided by the stewies ^

2001 LDY-DUB. Just two pax on this BA/Loganair flight early on an Easter Monday morning. A Saab 340 (I think)

2001(?) BFS-SNN - 25 people on an EI MD-11 for the first leg of a hop to the US. All stayed on except for me and The Current Mrs. Bounty, who had hitched a ride with an obliging relative who crewed for EI to get to an Irish coffee festival in Co. Limerick. Getting back was a right pain in the posterior though....

2003 EDI-DUB - EI had laid on some extra flights to bring Irish revellers over to the Edinburgh Hogmany (New Years Eve) celebrations (which actually ended up being cancelled due to some extremely inclement weather). As usual, they had forgetten to advertise the flights in the UK, so we were able to pick up a last minute deal for something like £9 each way. So myself, TCMB and Bounty Jnr flew over for New Years in Dublin with less than 30 other people on a 737.

(whew, my longest ever post on FT!)

Twice I was the only passenger.

Once RFD (Rockford, IL) to MSP, and once Jamestown, ND to Devil's Lake ND. The ND flight started in MSP and everyone else got off in Jamestown and when I got off in Devil's Lake, no one else got on so it went back to MSP empty.

I was a travel agent at the time flying non-rev also! Both were small 19-seaters.

US Airways Express used to run a evening Saab 340 on the LAN to PIT run. It would arrive full, but I never saw it get above 3 people going out... Several nights they would just deplane and send it right on its way! I looked to see why and realized it only connected to 4 other US Air Flights, and 2 of those were michigan bound flights from PIT.

Also Skyway/Midwest Express in LAN never had more than 4 on their B1900 LAN MKE service.

It was the summer of 1995...one of the hottest times in DEL...no one wanted to go to DEL but everyone was leaving.
Flew on a AC 747 combi, LHR-DEL with only 37 pax, of which 20 or so were in J.

I couldn't believe it!! AC must have lost alot of $$ on that trip!!
The rtn flight DEL-LHR was so full they had to ask for volunteers to stay because the flight was overbooked.

I was the only pax on a flight from Toronto Island Airport to YOW on a Dash 8.

Ther were 6 of us on a AC DC9 flight from YYZ-ATL once.

Aug 2001, Qantas late evening flight from freezing HBA to cold MEL. 734, I got upgraded to J, row 1. 4 other PAX! ~135 empty seats.

Some time in the early 1970s I flew from Minneapolis to Beloit/Janesville, Wisconsin on Mississippi Valley Airlines. The plane made intermediate stopes at LaCrosse and somewhere else - don't remember where. But I was the only passenger on the last leg into Beloit. And the plane continued on to it's final destination - Milwaukee - with no passengers at all.

Late 1980's -- ANC to King Salmon, AK on Mark Air (RIP) 737-combi flight.
three passengers and two FA's. We declined upgrades to the business class (cargo section) :)
Also remember a flight from MKE/ to Beloit -Janesville where my wife and I were the only passengers -- as I remember we where in the air about 5-7 minutes.

BMIbaby one Saturday evening in August last year. 6 passengers on a 737-700 MME-BFS. They've since played around with the schedule of this route a few times to try and make it work...it's never going to be a real money spinner I guess!