Expert: Roberto Gomes - 3/2/2004

Question
Hello, I am not an experienced traveler, but I want to ask about the term "flying standby".  What does this mean?  How does one do it and is it usually cheaper?

Answer
Dear Shane,

The term stand-by is normally used and applied to non-revenue passengers, i.e. airline employees and its dependents and companions.
A revenue passenger can also be considered as a stand-by customer if e.g. needs to antecipate his/her flight or was misconneted and the next flight is fully booked.

The stand-by passengers are ordinated by "boarding priority" at most airlines and this priority may be by check-in time or by seniority.

At the gate, agents perform the seat allocation for the stand-bys depending on how many seats are available, or how many seats will be opened for them. In this case, the operations department - responsible for calculating the weights of the aircraft - determine based on the available remaining weight how many stand-bys can be boarded.

Hope this clarify your question.

Best Regards,
R. Gomes