Flying as solo pax on commercial flight!
 

Today was a first! After a red-eye from LAX to ORD, I experienced my first "private American Eagle flight."

While waiting for the ORD-BMI leg at 7:20 this morning, I was called up to the ticket counter. I was told I was the only passenger on the flight today and the flight attendant would just walk me down to the plane.

Upon arriving at BMI, I was met on the jet ramp and told to just stop by the ticket counter to pick up my bag - it would be quicker and easier for them. Talk about feeling "very special".....;)

I told the attendant that I was outbound again on Monday morning to SNA and would appreciate the same service - if possible!

(To those wondering about the revenue for this flight, they did have an almost full flight heading back to ORD from BMI.)

But it did make me wonder how many other flyertalkers experience a private flight!

Once I was one of 2 people on a 737 (this was probably like 8 days after 9/11). They moved both of us to first.

I had this happen maybe 25 years ago or thereabouts. Don't even remember the airline. I was flying BOS-LAX-SBA(Santa Barbara). When I got to LAX, my SBA flight was canceled. I headed to the gate anyway. Somehow, it became un-canceled, but the rest of the folks must have made other plans. I was the only pax.

Cheers.

I was once one of three AE passengers on TVL-SFO. The pilot made a low, sightseeing loop around the lake before proceeding on to SFO. It was almost as good as those Hawaiian helicopter tours.

So, you were flying to BMI... I guess that experience is close to Normal.

(Yeah, I am a proud graduate of ISU, back in the days of COBOL and PL/I)

TLV-SFO is one long ride to be on a Junglejet. Did they board multi-meal service, or was it all BOB?

But since you were the only passenger, you should have thought of it as your own private jet.

Wow! The closest I got to that was an MSY-MIA flight earlier this year, I think it was a 738, and there were four of us onboard.

I don't remember how many people were on the flight exactly, but I flew AE DAL-MCI about three months before that service went "poof!" and it was pretty light, maybe 15 people? Of course, I have a MCI-ORD in a month that is looking pretty sparse...

So did your private FA offer up some snacks and drinks on the house since you're EXP? :D

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There was a UA thread about a guy with a similar experience a few months ago... Very cool!

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I had a LGA-ORD MD80 flight to myself once..

How on earth does that happen?

Back when UA / Skywest had the LAX-ONT service I was the only passenger along with my wife it was pretty cool and our flight took a 30 minute delay longer then what it took to fly there go figure.

Details here:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...orate-jet.html

Quite rare for you to travel without your security detail.