What was your emptiest flight?
 

Yesterday (Christmas Eve) I flew El Al TLV-MXP. It was a 737-400, with about 200 seats. They are set up three and three.

We had just 31 passengers, so like everyone else, I had three seats to myself, was able to raise the armrests between them, and get some needed sleep (it was a 6 am flight).

I can't remember ever being on an emptier flight and was wondering what was the emptiest other F/Ters have experienced.

SIN-BKK on SQ during the SARS outbreak...18 pax on a 777.

Visiting colleges in the winter of 1983-4. Supposed to fly from White River Junction home to LGA, but that was delayed big time (inbound aircraft delay) due to snow. So instead I flew White River Junction to BOS to connect to the shuttle home. It was about a 20 seater prop job. I was the first on, then they closed the door.

Pilot, co-pilot, and me.

Depends.

In terms of pax per seats, on 09/28/01 I flew a UA 777 ORD-SEA with about 50 of the 258 seats filled. There were two people in First (12 seats), six in Business (49 seats), and maybe four dozen in Economy (197 seats).

I also flew a UA 727 GSO-ORD on New Years morning 2001 that had like eight people, so they put us all in First Class and fed us a full breakfast.

The emptiest plane I have been on would have been a UA EMB-120 IAD-TYS in April of 2000 that had four people on it, but with 30 seats, it was "fuller" then the 727 and almost as "full" as the 777.

Solo on UA HPN/IAD ot the early morning flight in the mid-90's. I think this was a J41.

When Northwest (Orient) flew from Asia to JFK back in the mid--70's, they made a stop at ORD. This was a nice new 747. I guess that everyone got off at ORD because I was the only passenger on the plane ORD/JFK. :eek: The F/A's let me walk around the plane, especially upstairs.

BRE-CPH on a Muk Air Shorts 360 some years ago. 2 other pax but a lot of cargo.

Mine was in November 2000 - from DUS-LHR - a British Airways 757 - with me, my daughter (then 10) and one other person (plus about 6 FAs) - all ended up at the front - and even spent most of the time in the cockpit - was great seeing us flying up the River Thames into London - seeing the Dome and the London Eye - unfortunatey those times are gone ,I cannot see people being allowed in cockpits ever again - but was great for memories.

MAN-BOM on SQ their last seasonal flight in Feb 03.......just me myself and I in F. VERY personal service.

ORD-OSH on UX back in 01 there were just 2 of us on the flight, all 38 minutes worth!!

several years ago MD80 with me and three

A couple of years ago I had an AA flight DEN-DFW that had seven passengers.

The ticket agent advised me upon check-in that I might want to withdraw my upgrade request as it was a beverage only flight and they were wide open.

I have two flights to offer:

Mid 1980s Rutland, Vermont to LGA, sole PAX on RP Twin Otter, so pilots gave me headphones, as I was in the first row of seats!

Also, UA DC10 ORD/EWR, only one in F!

6 On a DL MD-11 to NRT
 

In 1999 I was on a DL MD-11 to NRT back when DL Japan flights stopped at PDX (DL also had an MD-11 that stopped at PDX on its way to Nagoya).

My MD-11 left CVG but PDX was closed for high winds. We diverted to SEA (along with the MD-11 heading to Nagoya).

We waited about 4 hours for the flight crew to drive up from PDX. When we left for NRT there were 6 of us.

Unfortunately, the plane had not been catered. The GAs warned us about this in advance so we all brought bottled water and food.

The FAs outnumbered the passengers.

Without complaining I got a $250 voucher from DL.

BTW, when we left the two inbound MD-11s (from NRT and NGO) were still sitting on the tarmac at SEA waiting for gates/immigration/customs.........

I forget where I was travelling, but once I was in coach and there were so few passengers that the flight attendents broadcast a message that when we got to the end of the runway (before it turned to the one we would take off from) that everyone was to move quickly up to first class.

Too bad it was a beverage only flight.
Rita

Flew from ATL-CUN in August 1999 with my family and my best friend, her hubby and two kids. Besides the 9 of us, there were only about 6 other people on the flight.

The thing that made it so memorable was that, during the flight, the Aeromexico pilots allowed my 3 children and my friends 2 children into the cockpit for a few minutes. They loved it, and still talk about how great an experience it was.

Unfortunately, they won't ever get the chance again.

AMS-HKG on a 747 with 12 pax, I was alone in paid F. It was during the CX strikes and everyone else had been rebooked through LHR, thankfully I was stubborn enough to stay in AMS (read; I was too late for the rebooked flights on BA) and ended up on the original flight. Departed 7 hours too late, arrived in HKG 4 hours earlier than the rebookees :).

CX F with 4 FA's was quite comfortable.

I'll move this interesting topic to a far more appropriate location, Travel Buzz, so that all may discuss it there. Thanks, Ocn Vw 1K, Co-Moderator, Community

Eastern Airlines (remember them??). Flight from YYZ-MIA on a L1011. The crew had brought the aircraft up very late the night before, and were over their legal hours, so we had to wait for them to find a new crew. Probably some of the pax got rebooked on other flights, but I chose to wait it out. Finally boarded about two hours late, to find that there were only 10 pax on board, with a crew of eleven. Had a long friendly chat with an FA for most of the three hour flight, and excellent service all the way. ;)

bj-21.

I was recently on an AS flight (SJC-SEA) that had more people in F (9) than in Y (8). (At that point, I'm not sure it made too much of a difference between F and Y - since nearly everyone in Y had their own row.)

Mike

Back in June of this year, I was flying back from SFO to CHO, with a connection in PIT (this was before US Airways "de-hubbed" PIT). When my Trans States Jetstream 41 prop job to Charlottesville arrived at the gate, only one---count 'em, one---passenger, got off! The aircraft and its sole revenue passenger came from TRI (Tri-Cities, Tennessee); the same pilot, co-pilot, and FA continued on to CHO. Interestingly, the plane was completely full on my PIT-CHO segment.

I wonder how much money US Airways and Trans States lost on that single TRI-PIT flight!

The emptiest flight I've been on, personally, was the morning CLT-CHO three weeks ago, on a Monday morning no less. Only five of us on a 38-passenger Dash 8 turboprop.

I was on an NW flight in Feb 04 in an RJ from DET-EWR and there couldn't be more than 10 people total. I asked the lady if I could move to 1st class and she said fine, I just said I wanted to sleep.

Mex-scl
 

In November I flew MEX-SCL on a 767-200 and there were only about 30 pax on the plane, 6 in Business Class and the rest in coach.

Flew HNL-ITO way back with only four people on the AQ 732 jet (seats, 120ish I believe). Was truly an empty flight, but no upgrades to first...

aloha

No wonder DL is de-hubbing DFW - I flew a DFW-SEA flight one Monday evening in 1/04 with about 25 passengers on board the MD-90. I also recall a AA MD-80 SYR-ORD back in 11/00 which had a mechanical delay, and all the connecting pax were rerouted - when we finally left there probably weren't more than 25 of us. Of course mainline AA in SYR is now RIP.

Probably the lowest pax count was a Saturday morning in 11/01, a UA RJ IAD-RDU with 9 passengers on board.

I flew YYZ-YOW on AC, this was when AC and CP had merged but were still running separate flights. My flight left with 5 people on it (it was the CP version). Most people booked AC as they didn't think CP was still available :rolleyes:

Great service, even though the flight is only 1:10

In the early 80s, a redeye from LAX to EWR had only 4 passengers. We all moved up to FC. When we landed, the FAs announcement said, "Thank you for sleeping with UA today."

Hello,

it was one year ago, mid-november, on a rainy early Saturday-morning: LH MUC-ZRH, I shared a whole 733 with another pax. Before take-off, the captain came to the cabin and told us, he will not make an announcement during the flight, if we have a question about the flight, we should ask him now... (unfortunately a flight-deck-visit was not possible, and due to turbulence, an extended breakfast was not possible...).

Greetings Patrick

I've been on two flights where I was the only passenger.

One was a Suckling Airways DO228 from AMS to Ipswich (RIP) in about 1987. I was a regular on the route, and was on first-name terms with most of the staff. I had the shortest safety briefing ever on this flight - it consisted of the words "You know where everything is, don't you?"

The other flight was on Air Bremen (RIP) from BRE to STN, also in the late 1980s. The crew decided to pretend they had a full complement of passengers, and kept making announcement like "If you are seated on the left you will see..." "If you are seated on the right you will see...". Obediently I got up out of my seat several times to see what was on the other side... until the FA came up to, just as we started the North Sea crossing, to suggest that I might like to sit in the cockpit so that I could see the left and right at the same time! Needles to say I jumped at the opportunity... Once we reached the English coast I started pointing out landmarks to them ("There's Harwich on the left - Felixstowe on the right - and that little dot there is my house"), and when they discovered I was a private pilot they invited me to stay in the cockpit for the landing. It was one of those flights I'll never forget... and I was quite sad when Air Bremen ceased operations not long after.

February or March 1971. 12 passengers total on a PanAm 747 from London to New York. I was taking my 4-month old daughter back to the states from Turkey to visit my parents and had already spent 20 hours in the air and in airports when we boarded the flight at Heathrow. I looked and felt like the walking dead and still had to change planes in New York and Chicago before finally ending up in Indianapolis. The FA's moved everyone up to First Class and we traveled in luxury. They took special pity on me, made me a comfortable bed upstairs in the lounge and took care of the baby for 3 hours while I slept. I still have a polaroid of her propped up in the pilots seat wearing his cap -- although you can't even see her -- just a picture of a cap with legs sticking out from under it. That was a flight I'll never forget.

Flight with no passengers ?
 

Ok, I'm sitting here on a Sunday morning enjoying this thread and I'm just wondering if anyone knows of flights with no pax on board ?

Yes. This summer I was flying Iair IAD-ROC-IAD and was talking to the GA at ROC during a delay and she was telling me that once or twice fly a CRJ to BUF empty with just crew. Edited to Add: No these were not repositioning flights, these were regularly scheduled flights.

My personal empiest flight was a B1900D MCI-CID when I was in high school on USAirways Express/ Air Midwest. There was the crew plus 3 passengers onboard; of the three passengers there was myself and one other student going to a program at the University of Iowa and one other gentleman, were it not for our program starting that day the flight would have had one person. Of course the other student and I were very careful about verifying that the bags we got off the claim were in fact our bags. :p

This month I flew Bilbao Spain (BIO)- MAD on Spanair. It was as 1130ish flight on an MD-80 series aircraft and there were maybe 30 people on board the whole aircraft.

I've never worked a scheduled flight with no passengers...have ferried empty planes a few times (broken airplanes, or repositioning before or after special charters, etc).

empty flight
 

LAX to PVR

about ten years ago there was only 7 people on the 737 (4 from my group). The stewardeses sat with us and even had a beer with us.

I've done a few propjobs with me, 1 or 2 other people, and pilots.

Lightest load on a jumbo that I can recall was ORD-LHR on Christmas night in 1995. I got a complimentary upgrade to J on a 767 that had about 50 pax on board. Maybe 5 or us in biz (my guess is that they U/G'ed the Plats) and a few dozen in coach.

Fond memories of AA liberally throwing around upgrade comps... :)

It was the summer of 85, three days or so before Hurricane Gloria was to hit in the panhandle. I was flying from probably New York to Atlanta, then on to Mobile to get in befor ethe storm. I was wroking fo the Red Cross at the time and was one of the people thry flew in just a few days before an event like that to work with local volunteers and get set up for the storm.

There were seven of us on the flight, three Red Cross people, and four CNN people flying down to cover the storm. The only reason the flight was happening was so the airline could fly their people out that were in Mobile.

I think that plane turned aorund in like ten minutues and took off again.

Myself and 1 other flying COU-STL on a Trans States J41 in May 2000. I was a non-rev so only 1 paying passenger onboard.

I just flew STL - PHX on SW (last flight of night) the second week of December with only 10 ppl on board, including myself. The FA's must have been a bit loopy because they were much funnier than usual.

Finnair MD-11 from HKG to BKK during the height of the SARS crisis.

Just myself and 6 others on the 300-seat widebody.

Here's a picture taken from the back of the plane in mid-flight:

www.jeffmckinnon.com/images/finnair.jpg

In May this year, SXB-CFE-BRU (this is the most direct itin, I swear) was cancelled by virtue of me being the only pax. I was offered a good compensation, and was transporter by taxi to BSL for a BSL-BRU where I and 2 other pax were flown to BRU on a Fokker 100. I guess it was a slow day... Actually, I arrived earlier than I thought (thanks to not having to go to CFE first...)

September or early October 1991. Sun Country DC-10 MSP-DTW. Less than 10 pax. Sat right in the first row window seat.

Gee, I've been on some doozies,

Every time this subject comes up I cite a Pan Am flight I took JFK-LHR a day or two before the Gulf War (the Kuwait one) it was me and a few (less than four) passengers who military and were continuing on to Saudi. The plane itself was going somewhere to pick up pax and materiel after LHR and that is why the flight wasn't cancelled. Basically they put us all in F and the plane went empty, technically we had three FA's each.

Flying back to Istanbul a day after the big 1999 earthquake was weird. I flew SR as many other carriers did not have seats or had cancelled their flights. All that was available was business, this was surprising as there were literally 20 pax on board the plane (A320). Me and another guy in Business, and 18 pax in Economy. What was surreal was that the Business divider had been pushed back to three rows from the back. SR had in fact done this as the return flight was being sold pretty much exclusively as Business. Yes that is right people, those Swiss *******s, the sames ones who not too long later broke the airline, decided to extort people who wanted to leave an earthquake zone.

During the Iraq was (initial stage) and Sars, I was on a bunch of very very very light flights in Europe and Asia, this included a KLM 737 with less than 20 on board, and a 747 to Asia, with perhaps 3 in Biz and not a hell of a lot in the back (also during this time I must have flown a half dozen flights in Biz where I was one of only one or two pax).

The winter after 9/11 BA flights to/fr Istanbul were incredibly light for 6 months, especially as a few month before they had gone from 75's to 76's, I recall many a flight when I was either the only, or one of the few pax in Business and the back was light. I think the lightest I saw it was 20 pax or so (the downgraded back to a 75 and an A32, then 2 A32's, just in time for demand to go back up - they were overbooked all last summer (when incidentally they did put a 75 back on).

I actually just now recalled in the early 80's flying with my mother something like ATL-PBI or MIA to somewhere on Xmas day and us being the only pax on the plane. It went off simply because the needed it on the other end the next day.