Originally Posted by usmc-sgt

A few tricks I do.

Go to expedia or orbitz or one of the other sites out there and many times you can click on "show availability" or seats or whatever they call it. Often times it will bring up a seat map of the plane with how many seats there are available. It does not always work and im not sure how accurate it is but it does typically work.

Once you find a plane that you think will work for you I always call the employee line or even the reservation line if I dont have the employee line to list myself as a non rev passenger. Before you go through all the trouble of listing simply ask them the availability to confirm. Sometimes they have a problem finding me in the system but they will still list me regardless. The point is to somehow someway get your name in the system because it starts you off on a great foot with the gate agents if you already have yourself in the system. No matter how you are listed in there they can always change you to where they want you the key is just be in there. It takes 5 minutes and I usually do it in the airport on my way over from my plane to the terminal.


-looking at his other posts, he works or will be working for Colgan. We have a few guys that commute from Texas and they say it is not that bad but you need to often plan on leaving the day prior for every trip and have MANY contingency plans such as flying to any airport you can get to closer to the east coast and then playing the jumpseat game to get yourself as close to EWR as possible. Dont be surprised if you end up in JFK or LGA taking the bus to the other bus and then the train to the air train.