When traveling as a non-rev airline employee (non-rev means we fly free…on standby) there are ups and downs….usually with a lot of uncertainty and stress. Thankfully we’ve been doing this for over 20 years and we’ve learned to “roll with it” when it comes to our travel days.
A typical travel day may look a lot like this….
- Constantly checking the flight standby lists the day before and day of and placing bets of which flight looks the best. There are never any guarantees that we’ll get a seat. This makes it interesting to make travel plans and you must always have a backup plan.
- Rain and ground holds can throw off your whole schedule!
Instead of ending up in Buffalo last night, we sat on the tarmac in Tampa for 45 minutes and slept in Detroit…for a whole 5 hours…before starting all over again. Can I just say that Sheraton’s beds were so dreamy!!
Larger flights are usually less complicated then smaller regional flights. This mornings adventure began when the gate agent informed us that they overfilled the gas on the plane and they were afraid they may be overweight.
…and that we may not get those empty seats on the plane!
Did I mention that the rest of the flights to our destination were all overbooked and didn’t look promising if we tried a later flight??
Thankfully the math worked out and the pilot was able to accommodate 4 more bodies and bags! This is also one reason we’ve mastered the art of packing small. Each of us gets a backpack or small carryon bag so we don’t have to check luggage.
This is a typical day that ended up the way we wanted it to. We’re not always this lucky. It’s much easier to travel as 1 or 2 than as a family of 4; but the reward will be a fun weekend adventure checking things off our bucket list.
Then we do this all over again trying to get home!
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Thanks a lot for this awesome informative article ! I am going to travel with my 2 babies and my husband also. This is very enjoyable moment for us.
We are dad and mom of a new pilot and looking for information on how to take advantage of our free-flying options