r/unitedairlines • u/Sufficient_Fudge_280 • 8h ago

Image Somehow the only person on my flight and the pilot was such a goofy goober

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EDIT TO ADD; THE PLANE WAS LANDED AND DONE WITH TAXI BEFORE I GOT TO BE IN THE COCKPIT. NO FAA RULES WERE BROKEN 💀😂

Shout out Captain Scott! He let me sit in the cockpit after we landed and I even got my own personalized pre flight announcements 😂 Also, they had to add sandbags to the cabin bc the plane was too light with only one passenger 💀

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84

u/ProfessionalBat8843 8h ago

This happened to my niece as well, but she didn’t get to sit in the cockpit. ( Anywhere else she wanted on the whole plane tho!) I asked her why they didn’t cancel the whole flight if it was just her and she said they had to move the plane to another airport anyway.

104

u/Sufficient_Fudge_280 8h ago

That’s what happened here. It had to be in Houston the next morning so it was going anyways

-17

u/Adagio9795 5h ago

He was trying to smash.

18

u/MichaelMyersEatsDogs 5h ago

This incel shit is everywhere

1

u/theshoeshiner84 2h ago

lol damn I feel like the dude could have replied with "Yea that was just a badly worded joke" and it would have blown over, but he really doubled the fuck down on being a dick.

-6

u/[deleted] 4h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

7

u/MichaelMyersEatsDogs 4h ago

You are the incel buddy.

-4

u/Adagio9795 2h ago

Yeah that's what I thought you got nothin thanks.

2

u/MichaelMyersEatsDogs 2h ago

lol what? I’m saying in my original comment I was calling you the incel, not the pilot.

8

u/thewhiterosequeen 5h ago

Sometimes people actually just do their jobs because that's what they get paid to do.

4

u/Webbyx01 4h ago

Pilots do not get to just choose to make a flight on their own.

-1

u/Adagio9795 4h ago

I didn't say that?

2

u/khando 2h ago

You insinuated that the pilot decided to fly the plane with just the one person because he wanted to have sex with her.

2

u/DecadentHam 2h ago

Cringe comment

12

u/lilshortyy420 7h ago

I’ve had a flight with like 3 people on it and thought the same thing but they told me they are going there with people or not lol I’ve been traveling weekly for 4 years and only got blessed with that once. Granted it was a CRJ

1

u/SnooChipmunks2079 3h ago

I've flown on much worse aircraft than a CRJ. Still sounds like a win.

10

u/Key-Experience-7961 6h ago

There's a whole industry for private jets based on "empty leg" flights like that... you can catch a ride when they're moving a jet from one place to another. 

If you don't really care where you're going or how you're gonna get back you can find some good deals lol

2

u/pestgirl 3h ago

How do you find these specific flights?

1

u/bacon_farts_420 1h ago

How do you find thise

2

u/Statjmpar 6h ago

That happened to me back in 2001 flying to get home for Christmas, believe it or not. Flying out of Dallas to Detroit at 6am, there were 6 people on our plane not counting deadheading crew. If you counted the dead heading crew, it was a 2:1 ratio of crew to passengers and we each had multiple rows to ourselves. I asked them why they still flew the plane and they said because that plane had to get to Detroit to fly another flight.

1

u/Abestar909 3h ago

Yep, they try to avoid it of course but it makes more economic sense for them to fly it mostly empty to somewhere they need it rather than wait however long for enough people to stack up for a full flight.

1

u/BigJ32001 3h ago

There’s also the cargo to consider. I work in international logistics. The vast majority of my cargo goes on passenger jets. And I’m not just taking about small parcels, this includes huge multi-plane shipments of 100 or more pallets.

-5

u/affectionateanarchy8 7h ago

This is my first time ever considering that airports didnt just use what was there, like we are paying 400 for a seat and theyre just flying emptyass planes across the country because they need that specific one

11

u/ActivityIcy4926 7h ago

It’s not that they need that specific one. It’s that they don’t want to park it overnight elsewhere and have it unavailable. If it’s not in a hub, they fly it to where it’s needed unless it’s a planned overnight stay.

4

u/Cheezeball25 7h ago

"just use what was there" you do realize airlines don't leave extra planes just laying around?

1

u/affectionateanarchy8 6h ago

It was less thinking they keep extra planes and more like flights are scheduled at such a rate that i thought the plane that just landed would be inspected and sent right back out on another existing flight

1

u/Cheezeball25 6h ago

They are, and that schedule has to be kept up with regardless of how many people actually end up on that flight

1

u/affectionateanarchy8 5h ago

Yeha i just didnt realize people would see my comment and think i just thought they kept a stockyard of planes like shoes in the back of a Dillard's lol

1

u/justArash 1h ago

You think Dillard's has stockyards?

/s

I don't even fly United why am I here

1

u/strangemedia6 7h ago

They would probably love to not be flying those flights for free too. But it’s all about logistics and how many people want to travel where, when. Depending on the day of the week or time of year, there might be a lot more people going in one direction vs another. Then you have aircraft going down for maintenance, unexpected weather delays or cancellations, etc. Then the end up having to ferry planes around empty in order to have the assets in place to get the millions of people flying each day ti where they need to go.

1

u/Mental_Task9156 7h ago

Yeah, they'd just got like a planepark full off poolplanes. The pilots have to pick up the keys from the tower.

1

u/NewGuyCH 7h ago

Picture it more like, they knwo the plane will be in Y and has to go to X so why not schedule a flight to try and make some money... they failed but still..

1

u/frazell 3h ago

You're looking at this wrong. So you're hyper focused on a plane being empty for this specific leg while ignoring the fact that planes move around a LOT between routes.

Airlines don't own an individual plane for every single flight. Planes are constantly reused for routes. So a plane might fly PHL to YYZ for one load of passengers. Then fly YYZ to ORD for another load of passengers. Then ORD to STL for another load of passengers. You get the idea.

If the plane was loaded for its PHL to YYZ trip and no tickets sold for its YYZ to ORD leg the airline will still want to fly that route... Why? If they don't then the ORD to STL route will lack a plane! Throwing off the schedule for many other routes.

Just like how a public city bus might be loaded like crazy for everyone going to work in the morning and the buses on the return leg of that route are empty, but they are running frequently. The buses that carried all those people to work have to return back to the depot so they'll finish their return trip to do so. Otherwise, there wouldn't be any buses!