February 16, 2011

“Standby” at Haikou airport in China

Standby earlier or later flight is very common in US, especially for Elite members, but things are totally different in China. I want to share my “Standby” experience the other day

When we standby in US, we can either wait at gate or at lounge, where you can relax while waiting.  In china, everything is different. There is no real “standby”, basically, it only happens in 3 scenario

1 you have flexible ticket and you want to take a diff flight, but the flight is full, so you wait at check in supervisor counter for 1 seat in order to exchange the ticket and get boarding pass

2 flight canceled, then you try to get on to another flight which is full, then you wait in the check in supervisor counter for a seat.

3 it’s my scenario now. 10 days ago, I checked the fare from HAK-PVG, only full Y fare was left for sale. I thought the price was not gonna get any lower and Chinese new year peak season was finished, just wait few more days. On Feb 10th, I checked fare again, every single flight was SOLD OUT from HAK-PVG for Feb 12th, 13rd and 14th, I thought I could just find a connecting fare, but EVERY SINGLE flight out of HAK to almost any city in China was sold out for those 3 days. The only option left for me is “Standby”

I got to airport 1.5 hour prior to departure to the airline ticket sales desk to add my name list on the waitlist, then I had to walk around and came back to sales desk until 40 minutes prior to departure.  The sales desk then called check in supervisor and told him how many people were on the waitlist and how many “Standby” ticket she could sell. For my flight, there was 2 people “no show” yet,  so she sold me a “standby fare” Then I went to  supervisor desk to keep waiting, he printed a boarding pass, but could not give me until the boarding process began in case last 2 people showed up.

Lucky enough, there did not show, so I was able to rush to the gate at last minutes, if I was not a Gold card, I won’t be able to get on the flight because there were 2 more people waiting in lane and they got there far earlier than me.

you may wonder why there were only three people on the waitlist when so many people tried to get out the island. It was because airlines don’t like to tell people to “standby”, even if inexperienced traveller asked ticket sales desk in the airport, they won’t tell them to “standby”, so they just walked away.

Posted by Troy under Other Airline Reward Programs | 4 Comments to Read