staff travel to NYC

Hello,

I'm planning on getting standby tickets on my airlines staff travel scheme to New York for the last week of August with the girlfriend. We will have to fly with Virgin Atlantic from LHR on standby tickets. (I'm flight deck crew on another airline).

Could anyone that might know tell me how many people turn up to these flights on standby tickets on an average Saturday and how likely our chances of flying out actually are? From what I've seen on websites there tends to be 10-20 seats going free on each outbound flight.

Thanks in advance.

[Darren Wheeler]

Welcome to V-Flyer.

With a standby, it's totally in the lap of the travel gods. All it wants is a plane to go tech and all bets are off. At least with New York you have the option of JFK and EWR so have a contingency plan ready.

Remember though, if anything does go wrong the EU 261/2004 rules do not apply.

I can't help with a specific answer, but, as it happens, I tend to travel to New York on the last Saturday in August, and my recollection has been that the planes have been busy -- very busy in fact. You don't say which cabin you are hoping for?

I've used staff travel a few times standby with BA, had a few hairy moments a day or two from Xmas but waited no more than 3-4 flights and always got on, never travelled in less than wtp and that was only once. I would go BA over Virgin just down to the greater amount of flights.