Getting stranded and other adventures on staff travel

So a few entries ago I briefly mentioned that once I got stranded in LA when I was travelling on staff travel benefits. Well now is the time to tell this little story, so settle back…

One of the first things people say to me when I tell them I am a flight attendant is “Oh my god so do you get free flights?! That must be awesome!”. They’re always a bit surprised when I tell them I don’t get free flights. I do, however, get discounted flights. Most people still think this is pretty cool. Which it is. But then, if I have the energy, I go on to tell them that sure, these flights are ridiculously cheap for me, but they’re also standby flights. They’re not confirmed seats. I’m only going to get on if there are spare seats or someone fails to show up.

See? There’s a catch. Still, I consider myself very lucky to be able to travel so cheaply. I am very fortunate and very grateful for the opportunity. And most of my experiences being on standby have been fine. But as with most things, there is always an element of risk. Flying standby means that you might not get a seat, therefore may not make it to your destination on time, if at all. It’s a roll of the dice. You just have to take your chances. Sometimes you’re lucky, sometimes you’re not. Flying on staff benefits takes a lot of organising alternatives, a lot of flexibility, a lot of reminding yourself not to stress out because the flight is full and just generally a lot of not having too many plans set in stone.

Sometimes, if a flight is full, it’s okay, because there’s another one to your destination half an hour later, and there’s a spare seat on that. But sometimes there’s only one flight a day. And sometimes that one flight a day is full for five days straight. That’s when you try to remind yourself not to panic. I once flew (and when I say flew, I mean worked with) with a girl who got stranded in Frankfurt for a week. She was due back at work and was having to make outrageously expensive phone calls to all her fellow crew back home to swap shifts with them and take their RDO’s and have them take her shifts, because she still wasn’t back in Australia to do her shifts (and getting stranded on staff benefits is NO excuse to miss work. Again, another risk you take).

Sometimes, as it did for my Frankfurt friend, you have to bite the bullet and accept your fate. You’re not going to get home on staff benefits. You’re gonna have to whip out the plastic and part with a heartbreaking sum of money to buy a last minute full fare ticket to your homeland. This is frustrating, because you thought you were being so money smart in the first place, flying at a discounted rate, not having to pay as much as everyone else. Sometimes this is the sole reason crew travel somewhere on staff benefits. Just because it’s THAT cheap.

But yes, it can backfire.

So there I was in October 2012 inside Tom Bradley International Terminal at LAX in Los Angeles. I had just got off the flight from New York and because I was staff, I had to collect my bag and recheck in again for the flight from LA to Sydney. There was not much time between the two flights so I was bustling through the terminal, making my way to the check in desk.

You can imagine my heart dropping when I saw a huge line at the standby counter. I tacked myself onto the end and got to talking to the family in front of me as we waited to approach the desk. My heart sank further when they told me this was the fourth night in a row they had tried to get on the flight back to Sydney. A few other people chimed in too that they were in similar situations. There were many a distressed face in Tom Bradley that night. The all too common distressed face of a standby traveller just dying to get home and sleep in their own bed again. A familiar sight for me now after working in aviation for 4 years.

The flight was meant to leave at 10:20pm, and I soon saw that time tick over on my watch. Names were called at the stand by desk and tickets issued, but alas, mine was not one of them. I was stuck.

I didn’t fret, because I had allowed myself six extra days between the end of my holiday and my having to go back to work, in case exactly this scenario happened. So I approached the desk once the throng had dissipated, and asked for advice. What I got was short and sweet. “Just come back tomorrow night and try again.”

Ahhh yes I was trying to get on a flight that only left once a day.

So I collected my bags, went downstairs, booked myself a room at an airport hotel and left. It was actually nice – I’d just spent almost two months gallivanting all over Europe and the east coast and midwest of the US, and it was all beginning to catch up with me. This was my chance to finally sleep (because when travelling I live by the motto ‘you can sleep when you’re dead’), so I snuggled into a cosy Marriott bed, and thanks to a noon check out, I had an epic sleep in the next day.

So I trekked back to my good mate Tom Bradley the next day after check out, and approached the desk again. They just told me to come back when check in for that flight opened (which was like 6+ hours away). So I wondered the terminal. I bought some Burger King. I used the free wifi, I read magazines, I wrote in my travel journal. I even had an uncomfortable nap on one of the benches in the food court (like a true backpacker/homeless person!).

Some hours later I went back to the desk after much thought about my situation. It had suddenly dawned on me that even with those six days up my sleeve I still did not have much time to get back to Perth in time for work. I’d already lost one day by not getting on the flight the night before. And getting back to Australia from the US takes two days because of time zone changes. My spare days were rapidly diminishing. What if I didn’t get on tonight’s flight either? Even as a solo traveller (not trying to get myself plus my four thousand kids and cousins and aunts and uncles on too), I was worried about my chances.

So I went back to the desk and put on my best distressed please feel sorry for me face. I asked them to be honest with me. To give me a ballpark figure of my chances. The news wasn’t good. The flight was already oversold by more than 50 seats. I had no hope. I was perplexed – it wasn’t Christmas or Easter or school holidays yet…why so busy? The check in chick just shrugged her shoulders.

I deliberated a little bit more. I couldn’t miss work, or I’d be in serious trouble. But I also couldn’t wait around for a flight I was never going to get on. And with the dates, I really needed to be on a flight that night if I was going to make it back to Perth in time for work with any time to spare. I’m pretty sure I actually scratched my head as I sat on my luggage trolley in the middle of Tom Bradley.

Most flights to Australia leave LA late at night so that they make it into Australia pretty much first thing in the morning. So by about 6 or 7pm the airline counters were all starting to open, and they were beginning to check passengers in for these flights. I decided desperate times called for desperate measures, and if I had to buy a full fare ticket, well, then, I had to. I still held a tiny hope that I would, by some miracle, get on my original flight to Sydney, but just in case I didn’t, as each airline counter opened I approached them asking if there were any spare seats on any flights to anywhere in Australia. At that point I wasn’t fussed on which city I went to, so long as I was in Australia! Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, I didn’t care! Once I was in Australia it would be easy to get back to Perth. Getting to Australia in the first place was the hard part.

But alas, no one had any seats. It seemed everyone was oversold. I would have to go on standby with them all. I envisioned myself running, zigzagging between every counter, trying to get on a flight, hoping a standby seat would come up on one of them. It was madness. It wouldn’t do.

I mulled over the situation some more. That was when I remembered another airline in another terminal at LAX also flew to Australia. I heaved my heavily laden luggage trolley out the door and walked ten minutes over to the other terminal and approached the desk in there.

“Sure, we have seats left to Sydney,” they said. OH MY GOD HURRAY! “But they’re only for Monday’s flight and they’re only business class. They’re $4250.”

Le sigh.

No.

I’d rather lose my job.

Disappointed, I rolled my trolley back to Tom Bradley and approached one of the counters that hadn’t opened when I had been in there half an hour earlier. They had a flight to Sydney, but it was full. Would I like to go on standby?

I was just about to answer when the check in girl stopped herself. Wait! She had forgotten! Tonight’s flight isn’t on a 747 – it’s the inaugural A380 flight! Spare seats galore because of the bigger aircraft type! PRAISE JESUS! I handed over my Visa card, and tried not to whince when she told me the price was $1700. I had to do it. Otherwise I’d never get home. And this was a full fare ticket. I was confirmed, which was what I wanted. I was done with this standby bs!

She fluttered away with my credit card and I stood at the desk for the next twenty minutes waiting for her to come back with it. Closer and closer and closer to boarding time. Where was she with my card? And more importantly, my bloody ticket home? Cue panic again.

Finally she came back, apologising that the machine to swipe my credit card was tucked away in an office at the other end of the terminal. Say what? Anyway, I soon had a ticket and was ready to board.

Oh but wait, first you must have a stopover in China.

Choking in China from the smog -
lucky I didn't have to leave the terminal!
 

Yes that’s right. I flew 14 hours from LA to Guangzhou, spent just enough time there to buy myself a coke with a Chinese label (for which the cashier at the store gladly took way too many of my US dollars for, thinking I was a totally gullible tourist, when in fact I was just thirsty and also wanted some evidence of being in China by taking a photo of my foreign coke can) and then flew another nine hours onto Sydney.

I got into Sydney quite late at night, used the free internet in the international terminal to book a stinky bunk bed at a nearby backpacker hostel, and then trudged wearily with my things towards it. I was wrecked.

The next day I finally boarded a plane to Perth, and a day after that I went back to work. So much for the few days of relaxing and unwinding I had planned between getting home from my holiday and starting work again!

So yes, I was out of pocket. After all the money I saved on all the flights I took in those two months on holiday (about 5 flights all up) by successfully travelling standby, it all went down the toilet and was wasted when I had to fork out the money to buy that full fare ticket via China back to Sydney.

But what an adventure! I got a Chinese passport stamp, which I was stoked about, and had a ripper story to tell my crew at work when I got back (which I told like a wise old owl for at least a year to anyone else who was planning to go overseas on staff benefits, warning them of my experience).
 

 

So dear readers, you can see why some crew don’t ever use their staff benefits. It can be very stressful. You can miss important things at home, or that you’re travelling abroad for. Plans change all the time when you’re travelling standby. Some people just want the peace of mind of a confirmed ticket, which I can completely understand. Sometimes it’s worth paying that extra money to get a confirmed seat. Especially if you’re travelling with your children or some other members of your family. It’s bad enough that if you do get on, you’ll probably not be sitting together, but if you don’t get on at all, or have to travel on separate flights just to make it to your destination…well yuck.

Still, everything in life is a bit of a roll of the dice isn’t it? I’m glad to have had the experience – my Mum has always said I am very resourceful, but I like to think I was extra resourceful that trip, when a lot of people would’ve just curled up in a corner and cried because they didn’t know how they were going to get home.

And I have travelled within Australia countless times on standby, and I have never once not got a seat on a flight. Different destinations, different days…you just can’t pick it. Roll the dice, as I said. As I commute from Perth for work I now rely on standby seats, and so far it has been fine, so that must reassure you that it isn’t all bad, all of the time with staff fares.

So next time you meet a flight attendant, don’t gush to him or her about how lucky they are to get cheap flights. It’s great sometimes, but not so great other times.

Your standby traveller,

Jorgs