eal wrote:

How exactly does one end up on a repositioning flight if not working for the airline, I imagine such an opportunity would be closed off to non-employees.

I had a friend, that was scheduled to fly roc-phl--rdu on the same plane. The weather was socked in for PHL, so they cancelled the PHL flight, but the route to RDU was clear and they needed the plane for the morning. Turns out he was the only one going to RDU. You could call it a re-positioning flight , but really was a reroute. He said it was great. The captain and the flight attendants addressed all announcements to him personally.

Never been the lucky person to be the only one on the plane... but I've boarded as few as 3 people on a 737 and was the gate agent working the live departure of an empty E-175 one day when ORD was having massive weather delays.

Several times, but the most fun was in the mid 60a PA operated 2 lat night flight HNL to LAX. One as a through flight from the S. Pacific, the other was a regular skd flight HNL to LAX.. The earlier regular flight was delayed so they put all the pax on the trough flight. I waited for the delayed flight. The crew se everything up in the galley ad told me to help myself, they al went to sleep. It was me and one other person.

It was very late 1979 early 1980, I think?. I was in Miami on business, and flew a National DC-10 to Las Vegas. There were 13 of us on board. The crew moved us all to first class, wheeled out the drinks cart, handed out first class meals on demand, and anything you wanted that was on board, was yours. Seems most of the world knew National was hours away from shut down/take over, and no one bought tickets. The crew didn't care what they gave away. Even under those circumstances, the flight attendants didn't drink alcohol that I could see, but they ate plenty while they sat and visited with us. The cockpit crew even took turns coming back to have dinner with us. It was a very cool, and weird experience. Days or hours after that flight, National was gone.

I was once the only passenger on a scheduled early morning PSM-BED-TTN routing on Pan Am Clipper Connection (Boston-Maine Airways) on a Jetstream. (You mean there aren't hordes of people going from Portsmouth, NH to Trenton, NJ?!) As others have mentioned, I was asked to sit in the back for weight and balance and had a nice conversation with the crew.

The funny part of the story was actually at check-in. PSM has a really small terminal, and when I arrived, the doors were open, but the lights were off except for security lights. Nobody was at the ticket counter. Finally I found a bored looking security guard and he told me "oh, sure, [name] will be along pretty soon." About 30 minutes before departure time, as I was starting to get worried, an agent came up to the counter, and when I walked up, she said: "Oh, you must be our passenger!"

The other funny thing was that there must have been 17 TSA agents on duty to screen...me. That was at the time Skybus was operating at PSM and I guess they had staffed to be able to screen a full-size jet, but the only departing flight that morning was mine. Let's just say I wasn't surprised to get pulled for secondary screening.

Lowest passenger count for myself was on my first F100 flight with Virgin Regional from DRW to ADL via ASP. Between DRW & ASP, there were only 18 of us. In ASP, 14 got off, but then the plane filled up & we flew on to ADL with almost a full load. Was a great flight sitting next to the window between the engine & wing. The crew were great too.

I was one of only ten or so pax on a US Air D93 in February 2000 DCA-ROC.

Mid 70's Hughes Airwest dc-9 LAS to LAX only passenger onboard.

I had that experience once. I was booked on a United flight from CAE to DCA. I was somewhat alarmed when we landed at IAD, but the FA said the flight was continuing to DCA. I was the only passenger on the plane for the very short flight.

I felt sort of that way flying First class on a HA 332 on HNL-PEK. was only 1 of 2 pax, the other pax had window seat on other side. I was also solo in First class on a UA 747. flights were kinda full in back, but being in the front class alone made it feel isolated. been on a DL MD-88 with just 5 pax from DCA-ATL.

It's actually more rare these days because of the number of nonrevs getting on. I often fly late night SAT-DAL and there are more nonrevs than pax.

I was one of 3 on an outbound JED-IST flight during Haj. Crazy empty, fun flight though. We got really good food.

My wife had this once: she arrived internally in PHL and was the only one on her 6:30pm flight PHL->BWI (yes, you can fly that). Main reason for her loneliness: the 4pm flight was much delayed and still in PHL, too. Funny thing: the 4pm flight was a CRj-2000, my wife's flight a 737 ... so the CRj-2000 was packed to the last seat and the 737 was, well my wife. At the end, the two flights left pretty close to each other PHL and arrived maybe 15 minutes apart in BWI (my wife's flight being the later one). Well, and of course, the baggage handlers had realized the situation, and had put anything into the 737 but not the CRj-2000, which I guess, is much easier for them, so any luggage arrived only with the later flight.

I’m surprised more airlines don’t do this. They ferry aircraft all over the place. Maybe as well make a few dollars from it.

einsteinboricua wrote:

Wasn't there one person who posted a TR on how they flew Phuket to Bangkok on a 777 when they were the only occupant?

Yep, that is me! Will never forget that flight, surreal to be all alone on a 77W.


Quoting myself from another thread about empty flights:

"Mine happened yesterday, had a fully crewed TG 77W to myself on HKT-BKK. Read below if interested in how I ended up getting a private ride on a 77W

Yesterday I had a quick, 1 hour same plane turn at HKT flying BKK-HKT-BKK on TG221/222 operated by a 77W. The first flight, TG221 was delayed about 2hrs, which got me worried about not making the return flight as I was not familiar with the arrival process at HKT. However, I was assured that gate agents in HKT had been informed of my plan, and were expecting me.
So, we arrived at about 10pm into HKT and I quickly made it back through security into the gate area.However, very much to my surprise the whole gate area was empty, even though when I had checked in online the flight looked full, and after all you would expect some pax as it was operated by a 77W. As I took a seat waiting for boarding the sole gate agent came over and informed me that I would be the ONLY pax onboard the flight as all other pax had been rebooked on earlier flights. Then he personally escorted me onboard, were the crew gave me a J-class seat instead of my booked Y-seat. I quickly settled into my seat, and push back occurred a minute later. The crew asked if I wanted to see the inflight safety video, which I thought was not necessary. So there I was, all by myself with a fully crewed 77W flight as we taxied for departure. We rocketed off the runway and once we reached FL390 I started walking around "my" 77W. It was surreal to have such a big a/c all to myself. Just before starting our descend the captain came on the PA and welcomed me onboard by name and thanked me for making them company on this late night flight. As we docked to our gate at BKK, the crew informed me that there would be a car waiting for me to take me directly to the domestic baggage claim area. So not only did I get to have a 77W all to myself, but I also got a private tour of the airport!"

I was on a flight YYZ-YUL-LYS on TS once, and the YYZ-YUL segment had only six passengers. They still crowded us all into two rows. The plane had a couple dozen deadheading staff though, so it ended up being a bit of a party plane.

I was also supposed to be the only person on the flight once on AC, but then they cancelled the flight!

Happened to me on a flight from AKL to HLZ on Barrier Air: Outbound I had to share with another passenger, and on the return I had 3 crew to myself:
http://www.airport-data.com/aircraft/ph ... 77276.html

And I had to share a DO228 of SATA on the 5 minute hop from CVU to FLW:
http://www.airport-data.com/aircraft/ph ... 29041.html

Had some pretty empty jets, but never *that* empty... I do remember having the entire rear Y-cabin on NZ's B777-200 on AKL-KIX, but the forward Y-cabin had quite a few passengers in it.

Back, way back, before deregulation I was one of 3 or 4 people on a TWA flight JFK to Orly. Had my own stewardess, as they were called back then. IIRC, it was a Boeing 707.

My grandmother was one of 2 people on a Braniff flight from Detroit to Boston. The onward flight from Boston to Frankfurt had been canceled and they had rebooked the whole plane on the Pan Am Detroit London flight and then connecting to Frankfurt. I spoke up and said why not just take her to Boston and then she can connect to a Lufthansa flight there to Frankfurt so they did that much less stress on my grandmother who only spoke German.

In 2017 I flew from LHR to Pisa for the day on a Sunday, there were only 8 of us on a BA A320. They asked me and the guy across the aisle with his teenage son to move back to man the emergency exits. The return flight, a A321 that night was rammed full, glad I took an upgrade.

American is flying a MD80 DFW-AGS (for the Masters) only booked to 6 on Monday, April 15th.

toering wrote:

Pretty cool.
Only one ticket sold on a 2 hour 737 flight to Italy. Can anyone think of other times this has happened?

http://www.startribune.com/lithuanian-m ... 507996972/

Did a search and couldn't find any other threads...

Toering-

A QF A380 operated MEL-LAX with 60 passengers onboard.

http://www.traveller.com.au/qantas-a380 ... pty-gojq5o

EK413

lucky you, I've always been on very crowded planes...

my fds even had a cruise by themselves (2 person)

Some 20 years ago I flew Royal Wings (Royal Jordanian) Dash 8 Q300 from Amman's city airport, Marka (OJAM) to Aqaba (OJAQ) but it stopped at Queen Alia (OJAI) airport to pickup international connections. I was the only pax for the 10 min flight. I wanted to stay on board in transit but the FA insisted I go to the terminal with her. I turned out she needed a smoke (ok in those days). Only two other pax joined us at Queen Alia.

This was a COMMON situation in the "good old days" of (IT) charter flights within Europe - when a tour operator chartered a hole aircraft on summer/winter only destinations. Bringing tourists to the sun spots on the first flight was not the problem, but as no tourists were actually at these destinations the a/c returned home empty. Same with the last flight of the season, no one would fly to a destination where is no way of return.
So tour operators started to sell "seat only" on this flights - without the hotel package etc.! So it was a common sight to have only one passenger riding on a B767-300ER...

AFAIK my best record I score on a commercial flight was Orient Thai BKK-HKT on an ex JAL B747 high density (all Eco) a/c with 12 pax!

In the Olden Days of the then new Heathrow Shuttle (mid 1970s), the advertising said 'Even if you're the only passenger and the flight is full, we'll put on an extra aircraft just for you'. BEA as it was then were true to their word.

I'd decided to go to Glasgow from LHR and discovered you could go standby, one way, for £11. So turned up and waited - lo and behold, a complete Trident 2 was appropriated for just me and a Japanese girl. Shortest take-off roll ever lol.