Brocc15

I am aware travel over holidays domestically can be difficult, but I have a friend who has vacation over christmas to new years and we were thinking about taking a Europe trip. Does anyone have standby experience international during this time? Is it more or less difficult? Travel days would likely be Dec 26-Jan 1. Traveling from MSP, so either to AMS or CDG would be most likely.

LeineLodge

Too hard to tell this far out. Depends on the route/date as you know.

Anecdotally I traveled with my wife and kids on Christmas Eve last year and there were 100+ empty seats on the airplane. Plus or minus a couple days it was a bloodbath, especially right after New Years as everyone is making their way home.

However there is always a way. Get creative, be flexible, have several zed backups and almost any trip is doable.

If it's just the two of you (both Delta pilots?) then you have more flexibility as you could split up, book jumpseats if absolutely necessary, etc.

In addition to the smiley faces on myIDtravel.com you can join the Nonrev Loads Facebook group to get a really accurate picture. Most of the big European carriers are well represented in that group and you will likely get a response within a few hours with an exact load check for offline/ZED flights...really useful for fine tuning plan B.

Good luck

contrails

It really depends on where you're going.

One season I remember GIG and GRU were completely full with a list of standbys. But it's summer down there and that's probably a lot of it.

I think if you planned on leaving on the 24th or 25th from MSP to a European hub, it'd be wide open.