Recently, friend of the blog and syndicated travel writer Chris Elliott commented on buddy passes in light of a situation on JetBlue that occured last week.
Gokhan Mutlu of Manhattan has filed a lawsuit stating that the pilot told him to “hang out in the bathroom” about 90 minutes into his flight from San Diego to New York because the flight attendant complained that the “jump seat” she was assigned to was uncomfortable.
Originally, Mr. Mutlu had no seat, but a flight attendant agreed to sit in the jump seat so that he might take out. Only off-duty flight crew can sit in jump seats while travelling. JetBlue, of course, denies comment on pending litigation, so we’ll not hear their side of the story for some time. It is unfair to pass judgement without it, but we hope there is a detail that has been left out.
But, potty humor aside, Mr. Elliott pointed out the restrictions of buddy passes, and by extension, staff travel in general. So, we thought we should discuss staff travel. Staff travel is also known as Non-Revenue(Nonrevving being the verb). It is space available travel where a fee is paid for the ticket.
Now, if you are an employee, you will likely get a better deal for yourself than you will for any stranger you choose to give a pass too(and we bet Mr. Mutlu’s friend is kicking him or herself for giving him the pass). But the airlines do recognize that these benefits are degrading in value. And they have to acknowledge that in order to avoid labor issues.
The traditional price of standby service has been the ID90. That indicates that the fare you pay is 90% off the full economy fare. That doesn’t work anymore, as the gap between lowest advance purchase fare and highest nonrefundable fare widens. If you are lucky, your employer will give you a certain number of ID0 passes, where the fare is zero and you just pay taxes and fees. These are great deals.
The industry has also moved toward a new type of pass, the ZED fare. More and more airlines are offering this for their employees with other carriers. A ZED fare is where you pay a fee based on mileage, ie $25 from 0-450 miles, and so on.
The truth is, the reason why standby travel has become less of a benefit is that capacity is reduced. The goal of an airline is to fill seats with paying customers, not employees on discounted passes. So, space available travel has become less and less of a possibility. Although, on a recent JetBlue flight, we spotted five uniformed crewmembers from other airlines on the flight, but it was a slow night(why we took the flight then, in fact).
So, the airlines are trying to make the benefits cost something that is still a benefit, but as everything else goes up, they do too. So, they are not screwing their employees any more than they normally do. And there is one advantage. Passes are open, changeable without penalty, and often refundable. Maybe a discount on actual fares would be better, and some carriers offer that, but it is still a decent benefit.
Buddy passes are passes that employees can give to anyone, are often more expensive and are limited in the number given and their usage. They are often less of a deal, because airlines don’t want just anyone getting the benefit.
What do you think? Is nonrevenue travel a perk or not? Airline insiders welcome.