Real Golden Pass?
 

Oceanic Airlines Golden Pass is fictional. The holders could fly as often as they wanted, anywhere.

Oceanic Six got Golden Passes as part of their compensation for sufferings when Lost. But it was also possible to buy a Golden Pass.

While Golden Pass is fictional, I hear that some airlines really offer something like this. An airline recently offered such a pass for US$ 5 millions. Someone commented that for US$ 1 million, they´d buy it right away; for US$ 2 millions, they would carefully check their costs and consider the offer seriously. It was later said that the airline did not sell a single pass.

Some airlines are known to have sold such passes at more reasonable prices.

Which airlines have lifetime flight passes? And what are the terms like?

If you have a confirmed paid F ticket on a flight where 8 F seats exist, and then the whole Oceanic Six shows up at check-in along with a couple of people who bought their Golden Passes, who is going to get an involuntary downgrade?

I suspect that any such "unlimited ticket" means you still have to book your ticket and it's subject to availability - you don't just show up for the flight on a whim.

So in this scenario Hurley would get the downgrade because he certainly would be the last one to get around to booking the ticket. Unless Aaron travels as a lap child :D

I heard about some airline giving a child who was born in flight free flights for life.

American Airlines has Aairpass. What are its terms?

I would like a Golden Ticket Willy Wonka type promo...one lucky person or two will open a bag of peanuts to find the Golden Airticket giving them free flights for life.

It very certainly wasn't standard procedure. I worked with one man who was born in an airplane-a commercial airliner while his mother was a revenue passenger-and know a woman who was born on a contract charter flight. The man who was born on a Constellation got a certificate signed by Kelly Johnson and the airline CEO, the woman got nada. I suspect that the airlines did not want to encourage pregnant women to get on board hoping the pressure drop would induce labor (which it does very well if she's ready.)

There were quite a lot of those back in the recip era because the pressure differential wasn't very high, the flights were long and the vibration may have had an effect too. Stews got a fair bit of training on procedures when it happened.

The closest thing to a golden pass in airline industry is the retiree Space A privilege, which is as it states, space available. That was once a plum and today it's usually a pain in the rear end as you have no idea when you will get back. Active flight crews have dead head privileges but they are well policed-it's for domicile to duty or other authorized use only. ((Space A on military aircraft is a lot better deal today, I think.))

Certain FAA people have jump seat privileges which on some equipment are good because there is always a seat and it's not a rear end killer. On most it is.

Some executive retireees had a benefit that was simply a credit card (it billed as a Visa or Diners or whatever) that gave them a certain number of flights or dollars per year for air travel, but the company was billed for and paid it so it really was not non-revenue.

The 2004 Neiman Marcus Christmas catalog offered a lifetime first-class pass on AA for $3 million (or 2 for $5 million). I'm sure there was discussion here on FT, if you search.