Expert: Roberto Gomes - 8/3/2007

Question
QUESTION: Hello,
I would like to know what standby by travel really means.  I am being given a gift ticket but it is standby travel.  What does that mean? does it mean I wait in the airport all day to a seat opens up to my destination or does it mean I have to pick one flight and if they don't have a seat I cant fly

ANSWER: Dear Luis,

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. someone needs to anticipate his/her flight or experienced a misconnection.

The stand-by passengers are ordinate by "boarding priority" at most airlines. This priority varies deepending on the airline policy and may be by check-in time or by seniority. Of course, revenue passengers have the highest priority in this case.

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


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: okay, thanks for your answer.  I just need to know if that, If I am on standby do I have to pick a certain flight and if there is no room I have to go home, Or do I wait for another flight to my destination that day.

Answer
Luis,

Depending on the schedule that the airline have, you can stand-by for all the flights that they plan to operate in a particular day.

Lets say for example that you have a stand-by ticket from Los Angeles to Las Vegas on United/Ted Airlines. Below is a sample of the schedule planning for August 20th:

Departure time Arrival Time Flight Number
6:58am          8:05am      UA1480    
8:40am          9:50am      UA1484    
12:40pm          1:56pm      UA1574   
4:44pm          5:55pm      UA1588  
8:20pm          9:40pm      UA1420    
10:48pm         11:59pm      UA1492

You choose to try flight 1484 and did not make it. The gate agents will transfer the stand-by list to the next flight and so on until you made it or give up.

R. Gomes