You want to get very cheap plane tickets, like this buddy passes, you have to know the risk and accept it.
Wow man.. that's a long time. I'm fortunate enough to have never had a flight cancelled/delayed on me except once during the whole Katrina exodus, but that's understandable. Even then the delay was only for like 1-2 hours max. That 1-2 hour wait felt like an eternity though and I was pretty grumpy. Can't imagine 24+ hour delays.
They accepted it. They're not complaining at Jet Blue. That doesn't make it better. It's still a sucky situation. Yeah, it's a gamble but it's a cheap way to fly. Normally, even if you lose that gamble it's a day delay... but six? That is newsworthy. And definitely I feel sorry for them, even if they knew the possibility was there for it to happen.
yeah I agree its a bad situation, and its newsworthy, and maybe my comment wasnt directed at them, so just a comment about the standby tickets.
try missing a flight in a different country. one of their national airlines. went from going to one city to about 4. stuck in the airport for days. never wanna do that again.
I've done buddy passes a few times and agree it'd be ridiculous to attempt with a family. It's hard to turn down free though. Longest I've had to wait was overnight, but I luckily had an extra pass so I jumped on an open plane to somewhere I knew a friend, stayed at their place, and found a plane home the next day. When you're by yourself it's not so bad.
Seems like Christmas 2006 DIA for snowed in. Had a buddy that barely made it home for Christmas. The worst is Heatrow as far as consistently having delays... The pilots expect to circle for an hour coming in and to sit on the tarmac for an hour leaving. Just too many planes coming and going.
The ones I've had were given to me by a friend who worked for southwest and got them for free. I have no idea how else you get them or what other airlines do, hat's just my experience.
This. I took buddy passes with a group of 4 once and we made it back from Seattle to IAH just fine when we decided to split up.
I've been in the industry and flown standby for 20+ years and you have to be aware of what the load factors are coming and going. When I gave buddy passes to people, I not only made sure they understood the rules, but also the load factors on the days/flights they wanted to fly. I would not give buddy passes when I knew a person or family would have a near-impossible time returning. A rule of thumb I always used was the return flights had to be reasonably open. If you get bumped leaving, it's no big deal. Just go home. If you can't get back home, don't fly out. I also blame the employee who gave out the buddy passes. IMO, it's their responsibility not to place "buddies" in impossible situations. I hope the one involved here is embarrassed and ashamed. On the whole, standby travel is totally awesome and, to this day, I grudgingly pay for airline tickets.
