rickair7777

HK's are usually either folks who missed their earlier flight, or were on an earlier flight that cancelled. The night before might tell you something if a flight canx and they rolled people over, but there can still be some show up a few hours before departure.

Example: That mid-morning flight looks good the night before, but if you check it after the early-am flight departs it is now full of HK's...all the pax who overslept or whatever and missed the early flight are now on your flight. Ooops.

If there is a really early flight before yours, always assume a few rollovers, especially if it's a big airplane.

If you are at the hub, expect more rollovers as the day progresses...they tend to accumulate. Last flight out of ATL on a busy day...fuhgedaboutit.

ratsnrip

HK are rev passengers who bought a ticket and did not request a seat assignment at the time of purchase.
HKI are rev pax who affected by IROPS- missed their connection for the previous flight - so they roll over.

The difference between the numbers showing as AV/AU and the numbers on the page after you look at non-rev standby's list - page called airport standby list are usually those HKs.

I've seen what appeared to be hopeless work out for buddy pass rider when the HK's who were a family of 5 traveling together failed to request/pick seat assignment. They get burned when the flight is oversold cause they are not boarded until passengers with confirmed seat assignments have their butts in the seat. Some will not split up family and insist on flying together. If there is only 1 seat left- the NR/buddy got it.

I could hear the mom of family screaming in the background of my cell phone conversation with buddy. She didn't know she needed to make seat requests that she had never had to do it before on any other airlines. And no they would never split up. I figured they were use to flying SWA or another airlines that doesn't assign seats.

ZDub

Yhatzee. HK's and HKI's are two different animals. An HK holds a valid ticket for the flight, but does not have an actuall seat assignemt.

av8sean

NW does this all the time, especially in SE Asia. The NRT-MNL flight will often be oversold +50 in Y but many seats open in J. SGN/BKK are the same.

jayray

Are they upgrading those passengers? Last time I was in NRT I was number one in line for a business seat with 14 open. I got on but in coach.

saxman66

Ok, so how come the Av/Au number given is always different then the actual number of seats available if you view the airport standby list. I always go by the latter and usually its accurate. So it might say -3/3 available and then click further back and it says that maybe 13 are open seats. Is this back again to the HK pax who bought a ticket but didn't pick a seat? But on many of these flights with no HK's it still says there are more seats open than on the first page.

ZDub

Here's the deal....Big daddy Delta (read rev mgt) sets a 'par' if you will, on each fare class, number of non revs, and even positive space pax on each flight. Depending on variables known only to Yoda and Chuck Norris, each flight, route, and acft type are different. For instance, if you go to TravelNet and pull up a flight under "Company Travel" as opposed to "Leisure Travel", you'll find two different numbers in coach/first (three if biz class is in the mix), and possibly a third number if you go to Delta.com and look at the seat map. You're 100% correct in your observation that the ASL is FAR more accurate than TravelNet. The ASL is where the rubber hits the road in terms of who is actaully trying to get on the plane vs. pax/non-revs listed or holding a ticket for the flight. Make sense? In the interest of full disclosure, the Harp is VERY cold tonight and well..... Anywho, I hope that somehow brings a little more clarity to a hyroglyphic system. If you want any more clarity, PM me and I'll do my best. Cheers...

ratsnrip

It would appear that a lot of the full fare, refundable, change-able tickets that are sold and the seat assignment is not chosen, are a different animal. I have seen oversold flights to a city (in "crisis" like hurricane damage or near a military event as examples). Yet when it gets close to departure time, there are an unbelievable number of revenue no-shows. A ton of non-revs get on a flight that looked impossible.

The next flight that by the numbers looks possible has a ton more HK's show up than the (over) sell numbers would have indicated were even possible. A lot of government and Red Cross travel is that flexible type fare ticket. I had a kid in both Katrina & Ike area and this happened alot and some of those flexible ticket rev passengers are there with me after departure but they aren't listed as standbys .

Of course when another airline's flight cancels - all those passengers will suddenly show up. I spent a day and a half in Detroit in mid Sept waiting for flights that looked wide open. I can't figure out what code is currently used to designate those kinds of passengers.

It's been a crap-shoot since spring. Go early, stay late, bring a book and cash, and never-ever leave the gate area until the plane backs away.

Colnago

Thanks for the good info. I ended up taking Turkish Airlines and made it to IST. I transferred and am now in Tbilisi.

Colnago

I know this thread is kinda old already but I figured an update wouldn't hurt for others who might face a similar situation.

I took a flight from TBS - IST on Turkish and got on that just fine today. I got to Istanbul at around 6AM and had to wait 'til 9:30AM so I could check in at the ticket counter for a 12:30PM departure.

I checked in and was told they couldn't give me a seat assignment 'til 11:15AM (when check-in closes) due to possible cargo restrictions (Deltanet has an advisory on it).

The loads were 14 Business and -4 Coach.
I managed to get a seat in Business for the flight. The other 9 nonrevs/buddy pass guys also got on.

I figured if I couldn't get on this flight today, I'd try the 10AM flight w/ Turkish the following day...and if that didn't work out, I could give the Delta flight another shot at 12:30PM the following day, as well.

Like others had warned, though....they don't give out "Seat Request Cards" so you can pass security/passport control, only seat assignments until they're positive you're getting on (all this at the ticket counter). That means you have to rush through passport control and onto the gate. It got kinda tight today and had to run a bit.

Thanks for all who helped out and especially to those who wrote me the long PMs.