studentsineurope

Stand-by Me: The triumphs and tribulations of flying stand-by

Here’s one way to feel like a balla early on a weekday morning.  Wake up late, shake off your hangover, roll into the airport later than you intended, laugh at the frustrated people sitting in an ever-growing line at Coach check-in, stroll up to the deserted “Premium Customer” desk, tell the cheery, bright-eyed attendant you’re flying stand-by, play with your cell phone while she books you in first class, breeze on through to the gate, and hop on the plane.

I've been here too many times.

P. Diddy I definitely am not.  But stand-by flying – in which passengers pay a discounted fare to take the chance on snagging an unreserved seat – can make penny-pinchers feel like jet-setters.  From New York to Rome, Barcelona, or Paris?  About $150.  No advanced planning required.  On the aforementioned morning flight, I boarded with ease and within two hours touched down on a Caribbean island I wasn’t even sure I was going to 24 hours earlier.  It was stand-by flying at its best.  And in this case (as for many flights on this particular airline), stand-by passengers don’t pay an additional charge for the first-class upgrade.

Of course, on the way back, I sat in the airport for 12 hours, getting increasingly nervous as flight after flight went by packed with happy travelers who actually reserved a seat and wondering if I would ever get off that stupid island.  I got lucky eventually, but it would have been just as feasible for me to sit in the airport for another 12, or 24, or who knows how many hours until a free seat popped up.

Stand-by travel (or “non-rev,” short for non-revenue, as it is technically called) is a rarity these days, as most companies have discontinued their stand-by program.  But sometimes those of us who are blessed with a relative who works for an airline are still eligible.  Flying stand-by is both irresistibly convenient and frustratingly unpredictable.  It offers the benefit of last-minute air travel at a deeply discounted rate, but carries the risk of being stranded for hours or even days while you wait for an open seat.  In those rare moments when you can afford to waste that much time, it´s not so bad, but if the winds aren´t blowing in the right direction, traveling this way can become disastrous.  I have an aunt (the sister of the aforementioned airline employee) who has taken advantage of the system more than anyone else in our family (all of whom enjoy the fringe benefits of our Aunt Marilyn), but once spent three maddening days in Las Vegas waiting for a flight before giving up and paying for an exorbitant one-way ticket back home.  Such is the risk.

Moreover, flying stand-by is not merely first-come, first-serve, but rather is based on a priority system depending on your relationship to the employee.  Employees themselves and their immediate family enjoy top priority; I, a mere nephew, am last on the list.  It´s very disheartening to see your name appear fifth on the stand-by list at check-in only to watch it drop to eight, twelfth, and then twenty-third as more important people than you register at the front desk.  Conversely, a girl I know whose parents have spent their respective careers at two different airlines is really set up: she jets off to Barcelona, or London, or wherever at the drop of a hat, and for next to nothing.  Me, I’m more likely to end up paying $7.85 for a Whopper Jr. in Terminal B than to fly off into the sunset for cheap.

It also makes you hate and resent everyone around you – any one of these people is a potential stand-by flyer, and anyone of them could steal your seat.  They’re usually easy to spot: nervous-looking people with light baggage, compulsively checking the electronic stand-by signboard above the counter.  My first stand-by attempt (from Washington, DC to Los Angeles) was really down to the wire: two minutes until the gate closed, with a single seat left on the last flight out, and the only thing holding me back, the employees told me, was an elderly lady who checked in but hadn´t arrived at the gate.  If she wasn’t there in three minutes, the seat was mine.  Desperate, I found myself silently wishing that she would break a hip or something en route so I could get on that plane.  And when I saw her coming down the corridor (one minute to go) chauffeured in one of those airport golf carts, I briefly contemplated sabotaging the thing so it would crash into Brookstone and blow up with all the massage chairs and audio equipment and I’d be able to go to L.A.

Trying futilely to sleep at the airport that night, I wished I had been more proactive.

My friends are jealous, but I wonder if the whole thing is more trouble than it’s worth.  Even my flight attendant aunt, who’s seen no small number of hapless stand-by flyers left behind at the airport, is hesitant to take advantage of the system.  In a time when airlines are squeezing passengers (and employees, for that matter) for all they’re worth, overbooking flights and cutting little perks, stand-by travel loses some of its luster.  But for the broke and indecisive, who like to gamble but don’t like blackjack, it will continue to have a certain lure.

One curious caveat about flying stand-by is the dress code – yes, on an airplane.  Never mind that the last person to dress up for a flight was Marilyn Monroe; some airlines will refuse to board on business or first-class those stand-by flyers who don’t ascribe to the vaguely defined rules of dress, supposedly because we’ll offend the tastes of the people who can afford to pay to be in those sections of the plane.  I guess that’s why we also can’t take live chickens and play the banjo on board.  This rule – like many stand-by rules, in my experience – is applied inconsistently.  I’ve seen it invoked for first class only but not for coach; in other cases, it wasn’t applied at all.  Then again, in one instance, I saw a girl in shorts and T-shirt refused a seat even on Coach.  The conversation went literally like this:

Desk Attendant Joan Rivers: “Excuse me, but what are you wearing?”

Unlucky Passenger [with freshly printed boarding pass in hand]: “Um…clothes, I think.”

Desk Attendant [critically eying the girl’s summer wear]: “Not like that you’re not.  You can’t wear shorts on the flight.”

Unlucky Passenger: “But I always wear this!  It’s never been a problem before!”

Desk Attendant J.R.: Well then whoever let you board was breaking the rules too.  You can change into pants and catch the next flight.”

Settling into my comfortable, low-fare seat on the plane, I sympathized with her all the way until my flight touched down.