The adventures of flying
I always find it so hard to explain to my friends about how I travel. I tell “I’m trying to go home this weekend” and they don’t understand what I mean by “trying”. I fly standby, more specifically I am a non rev (no revenue), I don’t pay to fly, at least domestically, because my dad has spent the last 30 years of his life working for United Airlines. However I am not guaranteed a seat. I only get on a flight if there are empty seats, and even then there is a list of people just like me, who are all trying for those one or two seats.
I sit in the boarding area after the entire flight has boarded. I pray that someone misses their flight, the gate agent counts down the time before they can give away the "no shows" seat. Sometimes they come running down the concourse, other times everyone boards and the flight pushes back and I watch it take off and then head home.
My friend told me I was lucky yesterday because it costs him more to go home than me (we live in Portland, but I’m from Denver while he is about an hour and a half outside of Portland). While this is true, the stress of flying this way is difficult to deal with, if you miss a flight, you can’t complain, you’re flying free. You just have to sit there and realize that your fate is out of your hands.
I have gotten up at 3 am for a flight only to get a hotel for the night after spending 12 hours at the airport because I couldn’t get out. There were no empty seats.
Flying standby is a blessing and a curse and while I know I am lucky sometimes I wish I could I wake up the morning of my flight and have a seat assignment.
