The Standby Struggle

With my dad being a commercial pilot for United Airlines, I can confidently say an airport is my second home. Having a pilot dad has provided me with a working knowledge of airport lingo, an understanding of all reasons flights are delayed, and best of all, access to free flights. The only caveat to the free flights is that we fly on standby. Meaning we are only able to get on flights if there are open seats and our name falls near the top of the standby list. Some days the standby life is easy, and we roll up to the airport and get on the first flight we try. Other times we are stuck in airports for days, not getting on any flights, and bouncing around the country trying to get home. My worst standby experience to date was as follows:

Spring break 2018 I flew out to Hawaii to meet my friend and her family for a few days. Going there was no problem, I got on the first flight I tried. Coming home is where it got complicated. As I was on my way to the airport my dad had called and said that the direct flight home to Chicago was getting full and that he didn’t think he would get on. He is able to check loads of flights before they depart so we know which ones to try. With worry that I would be stuck in Hawaii, we decided I should go to San Francisco and then connect to Chicago. 

As I flew across the Pacific ocean on an overnight flight, it became my birthday. I landed in San Francisco at about 6 am and was immediately met with a call from my dad saying there had been a cancellation last night and now all of the flights to Chicago were overbooked. The new plan was to go to Cleaveland, Ohio. I sat another two hours waiting to get on the 8 am flight, only to find it was full. Desperate for options I decided to sprint across the airport and get on a flight to Kansas City, the flight was wide open and there were seats on the connecting flight to Chicago. 

Once I landed in Kansas City was where the real fun began. It was now 1 pm and the first United flight wasn’t until 3 pm, so I sat and wasted away my birthday alone in the Kansas City Airport, an airport with one Starbucks, a bar, a McDonald’s, and a closed bagel shop. When 3 pm rolled around, I also did not get on the flight. That’s when I started trying other airlines. American, nope. Delta, nope. Southwest was my only hope. It was almost 9 pm, and after 6 hours of going back and forth through security to different terminals, and getting stopped for my 10 lb bag of Macadamia nuts each time, I was desperate. So I broke down and bought a ticket. By 2 am I was home in Chicago, exhausted by the 30 straight hours I had spent in the airports.

Even with these horror stories, the thrill of standby travel never gets old and my family and I keep going back to wait in airports all day and maybe, just maybe, get on a flight.