Originally Posted by
DAL 88 Driver
Attention former CRJ 50 seat drivers: Quick question. Have you ever heard of being weight restricted to the extent that you had to go out with 6 empty seats? The segment was PIT-ATL, today. Wife has a friend on a buddy pass (yeah, I know, we tried to talk her out of doing that) and the agent told her she couldn't get on the flight because of weight restrictions. I checked and the flight went out with 6 empty seats. What do you think? Legit?
No, never, not even close. Gate agents will say anything to get a flight out on time. An alternate usually only affected your ability to take a JS up front (say, GSO-ATL), and I can't remember ever kicking off more than one or two from the back because of an alternate. The longer flights actually made it easier to deal with because fuel burn increased max landing weight. Lately, we're underweight because no one wants to check a bag any more, and it makes us even more nose-heavy. Now, if the only valid Alternate was PIT...
At Comair, we still do the w&b ourselves, which can be a plus. I'm not sure how savvy they can get when it's done via ACARS.