Most airlines allow passengers who miss their flight for whatever reasons to board the next flight to the same destination without necessarily paying any penalties. Also passengers who arrive early either by design or accidentally may opt to take the immediate flight to their destination and not wait for their booked flight. These scenarios illustrate what is referred to as flying standby.

Flying Standby does not apply to passengers only. Airline employees, their families and those associated with the airlines can fly standby. When flying standby staff enjoys lower fares or can even fly for free. An employee is not given priority like a regular passenger and he/she may be asked to vacate a seat he/she had been earlier assigned for a regular passenger.

How do you travel standby?  Most airlines require that you have a ticket for the flight you had booked and it should be of the same day. You have to present your case to the ticket agent. This should be done in person at the airport and not through the phone or proxies. This is to help passengers on the standby list get a seat after passengers have boarded and some seats are unclaimed. If passengers don’t succeed to get seats they are listed in the standby list for the next flight.

To avoid last minute embarrassment check for unclaimed seats online. This information is available on the airline’s website. Avoid checking this information from third party ticket vendors since they do not have access to last minute information about availability of a flight.

Groups traveling together have to split up since standby seats are scattered throughout the plane. Individual travelers have high chances of getting a seat. Carry on luggage is the best in this scenario. Usually decisions regarding standby passengers are made at the last minute and as such there is no time to transfer checked luggage to a standby airplane.

It’s always important to be at the airport early before the flight you want to stand by for. Your name should be among the first in the standby list to better your chances.

Passengers who pay full fare and frequently use the airlines are given higher priority than a person who purchased an advance fare. Some carriers will only allow passengers who have paid the full fare to standby. This is mostly with low cost carriers. If you have purchased a discounted advance ticket, you will not be considered to fly standby.