Almost Empty Flight Experience

A350-200 · Tue Feb 25, 2003 7:20 pm

Back several years ago I flew DEL - CDG on a 767: I would say the flight was less than 20% full (all pax were seating alone, several rows from each others !)
Was only an "accident" as frequencies have now increased (and the CDG DEL was 100% loaded).

I wanted to know if you experienced almost empty flights (only several pax).
And is this route closed now ?

Anycase the flight was cancelled ? (excluding Dec 25)

Thanks for the input !

IwantaBBJ · Tue Feb 25, 2003 7:25 pm

Well, I've been on some Swiss-flights lately, and especially the swiss domestic routes tend to be very "weak". A few weeks ago, I flew BSL-ZRH (2 Pax),
ZRH-LUG (Rather good, 25 Pax in a Saab 2000), LUG-GVA (With 4 Pax), and
GVA-BSL with 5, all numbers including me.

Mike

KLM-MD11 · Tue Feb 25, 2003 7:25 pm

i was on a Manchester, UK to Amsterdam flight on a Cathay Pacific 747 back in 1993 and there were about 15-20 pax on board. of course the flight continued to Hong Kong and i saw a lot of people waiting to board the flight in AMS.

klm-md11

AC320 · Tue Feb 25, 2003 7:26 pm

I flew on a Canadian Dash8-100 from Vancouver to Seattle back in 1997. There were 2 other people on that flight; one at the front, one in the iddle, and I was seated in the last row. It was weird practically having an entire aircraft to yourself.

As far as I can guess, Air Canada operates that route now

backfire · Tue Feb 25, 2003 7:27 pm

I was at San Diego awaiting a return Trans States flight to LAX when I was asked if I wanted to take the earlier flight "because we've a couple of spare seats"...

...they weren't kidding. The entire aircraft was empty. My own private Jetstream 31 the whole way. Big grin

A350-200 · Tue Feb 25, 2003 7:32 pm

Thanks for the excellent stories !

What a mixed feeling: you would love to have all flights with only 2/3 pax but several flights like this and the route is likely to be cut ....

TriStar500 · Tue Feb 25, 2003 7:38 pm

I once flew LHR-DUS on a BA 763 a few years ago on the evening of a January 1st.
There must have been no more than 15 or 20 passengers on this flight, which was positioning for the early morning service from DUS back to LHR.

Despite travelling in Economy, it was an all-you-can-eat and -drink experience. The crew was litteraly giving those miniature wine and spirit bottles away. Big thumbs up

This was at before the advent of "Bistro Bags", so there was actually a substantial dinner even in Y.

767er · Tue Feb 25, 2003 7:40 pm

Flying from Wellington to Sydney in 1991 on a QF 762 on a wet Saturday night in the middle of winter...........20 passengers

paulc · Tue Feb 25, 2003 7:43 pm

Flying AA Md11 (N1750R) for Tokyo - San Jose - 35 pax.

Air Canada dc9 - Toronto - O'hare - 6 pax

trey · Tue Feb 25, 2003 7:48 pm

I flew a CO flight from IAH to MSY and I was the only person on a 757 and I am not kidding. This was back when CO ran 2 flights really close to each other and generally they tried to get as many on the first as they could, I was running behind and they flew the flight with just me. The flight attendants didn't even bother to do the safety demonstration. It was quite an experience, albeit only a 45 min. flight.

garuda · Tue Feb 25, 2003 7:53 pm

I flew QF's B747SP, SIN-CGK on June 1998. It's just after the huge riot in Jakarta. Although the flight was continuing to SYD, it was very empty. I had the whole row (10 seats, in 3-4-3 config) for myself. There's less than 20 pax in Y, and another 8 pax in F and C.

JA

kj76 · Tue Feb 25, 2003 7:54 pm

I flew 11 years ago from HEL to ATH for christmas ( Finnair use to fly directly to Athens back then ) on a MD-80 and there 3 pax + me.
It was quite funny. An elder couple on the first row, me around row 15 and one businessman on the very noisy last row.

Well, service was excellent and had long chats with the pilots back then

Guest · Tue Feb 25, 2003 7:55 pm

Sure.

Iberia A340, Madrid to Buenos Aires, last June. Looked like an Airbus delivery flight from the inside.

AerMickey · Tue Feb 25, 2003 8:06 pm

My dream is to be on a AerLingus flight all alone, with an all female redhead crew. Ahhhhhhhh... dreams...

Mickey

Dasa · Tue Feb 25, 2003 8:06 pm

I was on a flight from MEL to OOL in 1996, just before the Christmas rush period. There couldn't have been more than 20 passengers on the QF 737. The captain actually invited all of us to have a look at the cockpit for a while.

bucky707 · Tue Feb 25, 2003 9:35 pm

When I was in the Air Force, I was heading to Saudi Arabia on a military charter one time. Northwest was flying the charter on this particular trip, which went from Philly to Frankfurt, and then on in to Saudi. The aircraft was a DC-10, and there were literally more flight attendants on board than there were passengers. If you have to be on an airplane for 16 hours, this was the way to go.

apuneger · Tue Feb 25, 2003 9:43 pm

One of my uncles once told me that he flew on a 747 with only something like 3 pax on board. Can't remember the airline nor the route however. Can you imagine: 4 pax on a 747?

Ivan

Ejazz · Tue Feb 25, 2003 9:51 pm

Flew a United B727 from Denver to Phoneix a few years ago with only 3 passengers onboard which includes myself. The funny part was as we boarded we realised that we had been given seats together in a row of 3. Needless to say we soon spread out.

TSV · Tue Feb 25, 2003 9:54 pm

There was an entertaining posting like this a couple of years ago.

My experience was on an Ansett 737-300 going from Brisbane to Cairns sometime during August 1994. There was me and two other pax on board. Talk about impressive thrust to weight ratio on take off! I was upgraded to Business Class and the drink that they gave me before take off went flying rearward when we took off. Great fun!

MCOtoATL · Tue Feb 25, 2003 10:19 pm

On Christmas Eve in 2001, I flew on a 9:40 p.m. flight from Orlando to Atlanta. The flight was on a 777 (it was the one with the Salt Lake City Olympic livery.) There were only 17 on the flight, and when we were boarding, they took our boarding passes and gave us new ones, which confused many of us. As it turns out, they put all of us in First Class! What a flight!

fsuwxman · Tue Feb 25, 2003 10:24 pm

US Dash 8 TPA- TLH, One other person and myself, we got the whole can of soda...

FL DC-9 TPA- MIA, 6 people, right after a full leg where every seat was filled between TLH- TPA. We all got the whole can of soda here too...

Although these flights are not good for airlines, I love them. It gives me a chance to talk with the flight attendents, more than on full flights.

tsentsan · Tue Feb 25, 2003 10:30 pm

When Orient Thai first flew their B742 into Singapore last year, they were supposed to depart to Kuala Lumpur. Upon requesting his Airways clearance, ATC asked him for his POB (people on board), to which the pilot replied, "We have NEGATIVE POB" to a stunned ATC, who thought she heard wrongly. Big grin

Then again, I remember after the Bali bomb blasts, SIA sent down a couple of 747-400s to Bali to pick pax up. On the way down apparently, there was only 1 passenger onboard, and she was in Y Big grin

A350-200 · Tue Feb 25, 2003 10:33 pm

Tsentan,
One pax in a 744 .... Amazing !
Why didn't they upgrade this pax ??

rednose · Tue Feb 25, 2003 10:42 pm

On several occasions during the past five years I have flown between LHR and CTN with SAA where I was the only person in F. On one such a flight the crew told me that there were only 75 pax in the rest of the aircraft. You can imagine how I enjoyed the service on these flights. This happened about 5 times. In more recent times, I'm glad to report, the flights have been very full on each trip.

dstc47 · Tue Feb 25, 2003 10:56 pm

Many years ago from DUB to BRU on a Sunday night.

An SN 737, 4 pax and a load of mushrooms in freight.

azo · Tue Feb 25, 2003 11:18 pm

In 1995 I was on a NW DC9-30 LGA-DTW with only about 15 people on the flight including my family of four. Stretched out and took a nice nap in my own row.

OA277 · Tue Feb 25, 2003 11:22 pm

Hi,
last January I've flown FRA-LHR on a BA A320.
11 pax........

saab2000 · Tue Feb 25, 2003 11:33 pm

IwantaBBJ: I am very sorry to hear of your empty flights on SWISS :-( but the fact is that right now we are having a critical period. I hope it picks up. But some of the flights you mentioned are a bit strange. For example, the BSL-ZRH flights and back are as often as not aircraft positioning flights. I have flown them myself (very short - max 15 minutes) sometimes nearly empty and sometimes pretty full. Regarding the Geneva flights, these are also strange. This morning I flew it twice (as pilot) and we had 10,25,26 and 11 pax. The strange thing was that almost all of them are on C-class tickets, thus making these fairly profitable. I hope we get some pax soon or we are finished.....

Regarding my own empty flights as a pax, I once flew CVG-ZRH on a Delta 767-300. I arrived late at the gate and saw nearly no pax. I was really worried that I would be too late. Then I got on board and saw that the plane was practically empty!!! The irony was that the C-class was quite full and those of us stuck in "Cattle Class" actually had far more room than they did in front!! I would estimate that there were no more than 30-40 pax in Y-class. THAT was a nice flight!

UN_B732 · Tue Feb 25, 2003 11:37 pm

Business class on Aeroflot, and First Class on Aeroflot are perpetually empty, or almost empty. My brother flies on CommutAir and they are perpetually empty with their Beech 1900s. If you want an empty flight with an open cockpit door in the Northeast take Continental Connection/CommutAir. He was the only checked bag and there were 2 people on board. The airport was deserted when his plane arrived from ALB into BTV.
-Transaero Boeing 737-200

flyCMH · Tue Feb 25, 2003 11:56 pm

The emptiest flight I have ever experienced was from Peoria (PIA) to Detroit (DTW) on a Northwest Airlink (Mesaba) SAAB-340. Including me, there were 5 people on board the aircraft that morning. I have to say though, the service was top-notch and it was overall an excellent flight. Also, I think I was the only connecting passenger on that flight, everyone else seemed to be doing business in Detroit.

josseposse · Wed Feb 26, 2003 12:03 am

I've flown a flight IAD-ORD in jan. 2002 on a 777.
Maybe about 18 folks in economy.... I had 5 seats in the middle all for myself and that way I could catch up a little sleep...

BostonBeau · Wed Feb 26, 2003 12:14 am

My experience was back in the 1970s on TWA. I happened to be in San Francisco on vacation. There was a schedule change during my visit, and I stopped by the TWA office to pick up the new timetable. The timetable listed a new nonstop redeye flight on an L-1011. I called TWA reservations when I was ready to go home...they didn't know anything about the new flight...it was in the timetable, but not in the computer. Since there was also listed a connecting red-eye via Los Angeles, I decided to just go down to the airport and try the nonstop flight (I had an "open" ticket...so changing was no problem) figuring I could take the connecting flight if there was no nonstop.

So I get to the airport...and the nonstop flight is listed on the departure board. I go to the gate, and it is a B747 instead of an L1011. There was a total of 7 passengers on that flight, with 10 FAs.

hamad · Wed Feb 26, 2003 12:45 am

in summer 2000, i flew from IAD to FRA on UA, which was terribly full! wow, gotta love the feeling of a full flight with not even 1 empty seat, after that connected on Lufthansa to DXB, which had only 30 passengers on coach.. Can you guys just imagine the feeling of connecting to an empty A340-300 after being on a full 777-200?

yyc_cda · Wed Feb 26, 2003 2:17 am

I have flown on CX flight which departed HKGSIN at 0230 twice and it was great being a non rev passenger because I was guaranteed a seat! On both occassions when I flew on that flight which was supposed to be a cargo flight (B777), there were more flight attendants than passengers - I remember counting about 7 passengers on one flight and about 12 passengers on the second flight.

2000first · Wed Feb 26, 2003 2:21 am

Jersy European SHC360 from Belfast to Londonderry....2 pax (including me!) there was no safety demo, and the pilots letf the cockpit doors open the whole way!

BMI 734 BFS-LHR ....about 15 pax.

TransAer A300 dublin-Rome..... about 60 pax, but the aircraft was in a 3-3-3 layout, so there were over 300 seats. The whole front cabin was empty except me, my friend and a priest! hahaha!! Smile

MSY-MSP · Wed Feb 26, 2003 2:26 am

One of the ones that I remember was a good friday flight ORD-YUL on AC. It was about 2 years ago and there were 4 people on an A320. Of course prior to boarding the gate agent made an announcement that all pax on the flight were to see him for reticketing. I really thought he was going to cancel the flight. Instead he gave us all upgrades to Bus. 4 people in Biz, none in Y. Very weird sight.

Another empty flight was a saab flight on XJ from FOD-MCW and the return MCW-FOD. 3 people on the first leg, picked up 7 more at MCW for the flight to MSP. On the return it was just me going on to FOD. strange indeed, but nice. Had to sit in the last row though for weight and balance.

MSY-MSP

fsuwxman · Wed Feb 26, 2003 3:40 am

Why must airlines reticket for some of these empty flights. Couldn't they just tell the people to grab a seat in first or business class if they like?

A350-200 · Wed Feb 26, 2003 3:45 am

That's a good question !

I noticed that once on board it was also possible to be moved upfront without changing any boarding pass. (airline employees)

Triple Seven · Wed Feb 26, 2003 4:10 am

I flew on MHs LAX-TPE-KUL with less than 50 pax onboard their 747-400. It was actually a repositioning flight back to KUL as flight MH095D.

My other experiance was on a Transmile Air Cessna 208B Grand Caravan. There were two pilots and I was the only pax on a 12 seater (actually I was a tag along). This was back in 1993 (the aircraft was 9M-PMN--later written off at Tawau in 1995).

- Triple Seven

MSY-MSP · Wed Feb 26, 2003 4:16 am

With regards to the reticketing issue, he didn't reticket us. He just used that as a way to get the 4 of us to actually come up and get the upgraded seats. They did issue new boarding passes to us, probably so they could explain why they had a lot of liquour gone from the catering and no cash to show for it. So no they did not reticket, but just said they were.

MSY-MSP

jetkid · Wed Feb 26, 2003 4:34 am

Hi,

WLG/AKL on an Air New Zealand 733 with 7 other passengers onboard, July 2001.

We had been delayed from a 2030 departure, finally leaving at 2315.

Cheers,
Jetkid

godbless · Wed Feb 26, 2003 5:01 am

I flew STR-DUS on Dec. 31st, 2002 on a Lufthansa 737-300 and there were only eleven passengers on that flight.

Max

Samurai 777 · Wed Feb 26, 2003 5:03 am

AC L-1011-500 from YYC-YEG with only 30 pax including me and my family. This was just a part of the LHR-YYC-YEG route, in which we came from LHR. The vast majority of passengers were Calgary-bound, so the LHR-YYC segment was almost full, but only a few were bound for YEG as the final destination, hence the almost empty YYC-YEG flight.

cedarjet · Wed Feb 26, 2003 5:19 am

NW 747-100 Gatwick to Boston, Feb 1991. About 20 pax. Nice. Also Olympic 737-400 LHR to Athens (the overnight one that leaves about 10 and arrives ATH about 4am) with 3 pax, and (like someone above) we were all seated together, in 1A, 1B and 1C (economy seats). Cheers, moronic seat allocation person. It didn't take long for us to head in three seperate directions. Also enjoyed my only 747SP ride with a very, shall we say, SELECT group - about 30 on Mandarin Airlines from Taipei to Sydney.

It's not that unusual to get a centre row of four on a widebody, but you know you're on an empty flight when you get a block of three including a window to yourself. You get to stretch out and sleep almost flat, but your head is by the window and the first thing you see when you wake up is the sky / ground / sunrise etc. Getting the window + 2 to myself is the very best flying experience there is, I've had it on NW LGW-BOS (see 1st para), VS LHR-SFO and maybe four other longhauls. Also on shorthaul (ie EZY LGW-AMS, SR LHR-Basle) but you don't tend to take your shoes off and lie flat and sleep on a 50 minute flight.

Some guy was in the news in the UK a few years ago cos his BA flight from JFK to LHR was delayed by 15 hours, and there was a couple of later BA 747s with enough empty seats to accomodate everyone, except this one guy (probably a visitor to Airliners.net) who preferred to take the original flight, and he was the only one onboard. The picture in the paper was him in a first class seat, and a big teddy bear for his daughter he bought shopping in NY. Aw.

james · Wed Feb 26, 2003 5:29 am

In 1998 right in the middle of the asian financial crisis I flew a TG A330 from SEL to BKK. There were 18 pax on the flight. Also years ago flew Peoplexpess from MCO to EWR on a B727 with 12 pax ttl. They put us all in 1st class.

Guest · Wed Feb 26, 2003 5:44 am

Almost all flights to Lynchburg Virginia are empty Sad

Its sad but true....

United Express pulled their service to IAD and Delta ASA has dropped a flight.

Its sad here in LYH..... Sad

I was flying COS-ATL on a DLMD-88 once and the ENTIRE back half of coach was empty. I was having a great time...darting around across the cabin between seats every 5 minutes, sprinting back to the Flight attendant galley to get drinks and snacks!!! It was a lot better that any First Class seat I can tell you that! Big thumbs up

DeltaASA16

bapilot2b · Wed Feb 26, 2003 5:46 am

AMS-EMA on a F100, 32 PAX including me. Pretty low if you ask me!

timbotch · Wed Feb 26, 2003 6:46 am

I nonrevved back to SEA from YVR late at night on Horizon with my girlfriend a few months back, we were the only 2 people on the DH-8-200. Pilots sat at takeoff power with brakes set and then released them, we were off in the first 1000' i think. The boarding agent in YVR told me that she was sad that we listed for that flight because she wanted to go home early.

And i nonrevved down to SNA from SEA about a year ago on AS and there were 12 people on the plane.

Snoopy · Wed Feb 26, 2003 12:04 pm

Many years ago I flew between ZRH and HAJ on a DLT HS748. I was the only one on board. More recently I flew between MUC and LCY on a Dash? There were three of us on board.

CVG777 · Wed Feb 26, 2003 12:30 pm

Delta B763 LGA-FLL 9:00pm Saturday night flight with about 35 pax on board including about 15 people from my group.

Delta MD88 MIA-ATL 5:30am flight with about 25 people on board.

Delta L1011 ATL-MIA 11:20pm flight with about 40 people on board. The aircraft was originally supposed to be a 757 but there was a last minute equipment change.

Comair EMB-120 EYW-MCO with 8 pax on board.

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