Employees will once again be able to fly standby without capacity restrictions effective July 1st on United Airlines. The move staves off what had been mounting frustration and anger among employees who found one of their primary fringe benefits worthless.
For most employee groups at United, pass privileges–the ability to fly non-revenue, space available (NRSA)–are a benefit, but not a contractual right. Even so, many work for a commercial airline in order to take advantage of that benefit. The idea is that you accept lower base pay, but the chance to “fly the world for free” makes up for some of that.
In reality, standby travel is not free, especially on international flights. In addition to government taxes, imputed taxes are also levied that sometimes make buying a confirmed ticket almost as attractive. But working for a big airline like United opens the door to standby travel around the world on United and many of its partner airlines.
Standby travel also allows many flight attendants or pilots to live in one place and work in another. A flight attendant might live in New Mexico and commute to Denver for work or a pilot live in Florida but commute to Newark. Standby is an essential tool in shuttling back and forth between work and home.
In May, United informed employees they would not be boarded on a standby basis if capacity was a more than 70%. This has essentially killed standby travel for the last two month on many busy routes. With flight schedules extremely limited and demand showing signs of life, flights have been full.
> Read More: United Restricts Employee Standby Travel To Ease Onboard Crowding Tensions
> Read More: The Real Reason United Airlines Is Limiting Standby Travel For Employees
While United made some accommodations for commuting travelers (allowing them positive space travel to/from work), most employees have been essentially unable to use their travel benefits.
There’s already great uncertainty about the future. What will happen on October 1st? How many employees will lose their jobs? One flight attendant told me, “This de facto moratorium on standby travel was like the straw that broke the camel’s back. It simply crushed what little morale was remaining.”
But come July 1st, United employees will once be able to standby for last-available seating on every United flight.
CONCLUSION
The ability to pass ride again staves off an employee revolt by plugging a drain that was quickly depleting morale. Most of the world may still be off-limits to US citizens, but United has employees all over the world and a sprawling domestic network. The policy will result in fuller flights, but happier employees. As a customer, I’ll take that tradeoff.
image: United
Is the issue that nonrevs could only be boarded under 70% but flights were sold to capacity? Delta won’t board nonrevs above 60%…but won’t sell tickets beyond 60% either…
The issue is when flights were more than 70% but less than 100% full. Employees remained behind despite open seats onboard.
There’s no imputed income tax on standby tickets space available tickets. Domestically, you can fly completely free in economy, though there are sometimes upcharges involved with premium cabins domestically and internationally. It’s been about 6 years since I stopped working for a domestic airline and left the industry, but never in my time there did I have any imputed taxes levied on my income for the VAST amounts of domestic and international premium class non-rev travel that I did. Still have many friends at those airlines and they all say the same thing.
@Jason you’re correct, there are no imputed income taxes for active employees but there are for spouses, DP, children, enrolled friends, and friends flying on buddy passes.
Also, I know that buddy passes to Europe or Asia can be anywhere from $500-1000+ for an economy ticket one way in which case it can be cheaper to buy a ticket in a lot of cases.
I think the real issue with UA employees (and DL too) is that FAs and Pilots that choose to live someplace other than their base have had issues commuting which they believe is their right not just a nice to have privilege (total bs btw)
Respectfully Bob, commuting is not often a privilege but a burden. Over time, airlines close bases which force employees to either uproot their families and move or to commute. Most would prefer to live in base, but if you have kids in school, a mortgage on a house, and a spouse with a local job somewhere and then have your base close, it wasn’t really your choice to commute but the company’s choice to make you commute.
You are absolutely correct, however most of these people don’t understand how an airline will close bases and force employees to other bases. The airlines have done this for decades. The airline doesn’t always pay for a family to relocate either. So when people just read this and think it’s a choice on the employees part it isn’t. I’ve had 4 base closures in less than 5 years during my 30+ year career with the airlines. The amount of stress on an employee and their families is immense! Hence the reason for commuting!
I agree with you. Choosing where to work and where to locate your family home are personal decisions. How to get yourself to your work location is a personal responsibility and not for the employer to figure out.
United has closed many pilot and flight attendant bases/domiciles so commuting isn’t/wasn’t simply always a choice made by the employee.
Selling property, uprooting children, moving away from family, elderly parents and perhaps a spouse/partner that may have to find another job is not always a feasible ‘choice’.
Horrifically subjective and sensationalized article and title. Something like 10-15% of flights were effected by this 70% cap over the last month and an even fewer percentage of standby pax did not actually get on to flights. So no, this cap did not “essentially kill” standby travel, it merely limited it. What it did, however, was try to ensure middle seats were left open for paying customers. And yes, employees were not thrilled with the policy, but we all make concessions in times of great uncertainty.
Do you have figures you can share? Because I go based upon what sources tell me and they pointed to full loads and virtual impossibility of standing by on a hub-hub route.
Matt,
You are correct … most Hub to Hub are pretty packed because they aren’t many options … otherwise flights to St.Louis, Atlanta, Ft.Lauderdale and I can go on and on are open … not wide open as in 10 passengers but enough to allow all NRSA to get on.
ORD to DEN and ORD to SFO have been packed to the gill with paying passengers for over a month.
And I am an United employee at ORD
Hub-to-hub flight are packed for the most part, which is logical given how a hub and spoke airline works… Senior leaders shared – within the last 2 weeks – that over 85% of flights went out less than 70% full and only ~10% of listed NRSA did not actually get on.
On another note, you can’t go off the seat maps as many seats are blocked on the back end and do not show for booking making it look like flights are more full than they actually are.
I understand seat assignments are worthless in advance, especially now with seat blocking, but I thought they were accurate post-takeoff?
Recently, no. If the seat was blocked on the backend, it will continue to show blocked even after takeoff.
If so many flights are running at 70% or more capacity, United badly needed to increase the number of flights they run. Offering more flights leads to more customers filling up planes. If employees are getting paid anyway due to government money, flying a bunch of 70% full planes – plus cargo – makes good financial sense, particularly when fuel prices are low.
True except for the fact that the vast vast majority of flights are NOT running at 70% load factors. Hub to hub flying may be at peak times, but the traffic still isn’t there to support substantially greater volumes. Look at what AA is doing trying to pump in all those additional flights and they’re going out with 20-30% loads… they’re just bleeding cash right now praying that the share they steal now will stay with them long term…trying to chase market share is typically a fools errand.
Do you work for United? I’d be curious to understand actual loads…I’m seeing a lot of full flights when I check seat maps of departed flights. Several readers have also told me their flights have been running 80-95% full…
Don’t work for United – but based on my experience the seat map is useless at this point. If you see an open seat in the app, safe to assume your flight is pretty open. I flew last week. Outbound flight was probably 95% full (based on my count of open middle seats on the plane). My flight on the way back was about 67% full, again (based on the count of open middle seats on the plane). The app showed no availability on both flights as at the time they blocked middle seats regardless. This was also hub to hub and my understanding those have typically been more full than the hub to spoke flights…. though I’m happy for a United employee to correct that assumption for me
I never would look at a seatmap prior to takeoff as a good indicator of loads due to all the blocking, but I thought the seat map post-departure released all open seats?
Are airline workers the most entitled people on the planet? They work 80 hours a month, can’t be fired because of union rules and can treat passengers (you know, the people that provide the revenue) like crap and get away with it. Congress GIVES them billion$ of taxpayer dollars and its never enough to satify them.
Time to let the airlines fend for themselves? Instead of yet another bailout for airline employees and shareholders, Congress could redirect the money these whuiny employees demand ansd instead buy 100% of the euity in these companies and auction off the assets and the right to start five new airlines from scratch.
Can’t be any worse than what we have now. (of course this will never happen but it shoudl be considered as an option)
Thank you! You nailed it on every point. Just remember: on United, it’s employees first; customers last. I do wish we could just let the crappy airline and its surly, over-entitled employees go down in smoke.
If you guys think airline employees are so entitled, why don’t you go work for one. It might make you happier. Or better yet, take the bus or train on your next trip so you are not so bitter.
This is extremely valuable right now because employees traveling on staff travel benefits are among the exempt category of US citizens permitted to travel to the European Union from July.
That is not correct. The category is “Transport personnel”, which means that they have to enter the EU in order to perform the function. In this case, the crew and deadheading crew traveling on company business, or commuting crewmembers (which, UA only has 1 FA base in LHR, and the UK is not bound by the EU requirement due to Brexit), not airline employees on holiday using their pass privilege.
UA also has an FA base in FRA at least until the end of September.
@ptahcha – That is not what I am referring to. There is a separate guidance note that has been circulated to airlines regarding this point. The reciprocal exemption does not however apply to those traveling from the EU to the USA.
Sean, do you have a link for that? I’m interested in reading it.
Sounds very Kirby. If so, he never learns, being cheap for employees and customers never pays.