Every time I’m traveling, say, SF to LA or NY to Boston, I notice there are flights departing basically every 15 minutes but because they’re from different airlines, I have to wait for multiple, half empty departures before my scheduled flight.
Are there any air routes in the world where buying a plane ticket is much more akin to buying a bus ticket? That is, instead of buying a ticket for a specified flight with a guaranteed seat, you can just buy a general purpose ticket and then get on the next flight that’s got capacity? That way, you can just show up to the airport at whatever time you like, don’t have to worry about how long the security line will be on that day, and just hop on the next flight when you’re through.
Eastern used to run a shuttle like this between Boston, New York, and Washington. At it’s height I believe it operated every half hour and they’d sometimes send a plene if full and add another. You could buy a ticket on the plane.
American now runs a shuttle that includes those cities and Chicago, but I don’t know if you can but a general use ticket or not.
I think Delta’s “shuttle” flights from New York to Boston, Chicago, and Washington work kind of like that. Flights depart about every 30 minutes IIRC, and you can basically just show up at the airport, buy a ticket, and get on the next flight. They cater to business travelers who might need to travel at the last minute, and I imagine they charge a premium for the service.
ETA: And there’s American’s competing service that Old Guy mentioned above. In fact I think the current American service is essentially a continuation of the former Easters service. IIRC US Airways took over the service after Eastern went under, and now it’s part of American since they merged. And Delta’s shuttle flights used to be the Pan Am shuttle. And I believe the short lived Trump Shuttle was a similar service.
My suspicion is that, with the tighter security on ticket purchases after 9/11, shuttles like that (and the Delta one that WildaBeest mentions) don’t allow for a “general use” ticket, but I could well be mistaken.
Alaska Air has similar shuttles running every 30 minutes out of Seattle. If you’re early, they’ll try and find you a seat earlier, and if you’re late they move you onto a later plane. You don’t buy a general use ticket though.
How do “around-the-world” tickets work? A friend of mine got a pair for her graduation present from college, and I’ve always wondered. Do you just show up? Do you call the airline before your next flight?
In Belize, some of the island hopping flights are kind of like that, you buy a ticket for a specific flight, but can jump on an earlier one if there’s room.
I used to fly SEA-PDX all the time, often on short notice (all before 9-11, of course). I had a booklet of what were more or less flight coupons that tear out and give to a gate agent. They’d let me know what upcoming flight had seats available and convert the coupon into a ticket. Was great.
I once flew “early”. Got to the airport well in advance of my flight. Notice that an earlier flight was going my way. Went up to the counter, it had seats available and I got switched to the earlier flight.
Look at it from the airlines point of view: There’s a flight leaving soon with an empty seat. Give it to this mook and it’s not a wasted seat. The seat I give up on the later flight might now be sold to someone. It’s a possible gain for the airline.
But that was a couple hours earlier. Not sure how they feel if you turned up several days early. I bet they don’t want to be annoyed by people with issues such as being worried about where they’re going to stay that night if they don’t get the earlier flight. Such folk can be cantankerous at the counter.
I bought a “round the world” ticket in 2002 (so this may be somewhat out of date) but the basic system was, I had to specify the route (ie what each leg would be) and the date of the first departure, and then from there on I had to contact the airline to book the seat on a specific flight on each leg.
I don’t remember it being that much of a hassle - I don’t recall the details but I think I could book fairly close to the time I wanted to fly, maybe even on the day in some cases. I’m sure these days it could all be done from your smartphone.
I recall hearing that American and Delta also had some seemingly informal process whereby if you had a physical shuttle ticket for one airline and you showed up for a shuttle flight on the other, they would exchange your ticket and let you board. I assume the airlines had reimbursement agreements on the back-end. I’m too young to have done it myself and I’m not entirely sure that the process survived 9/11 and e-ticketing but people used to talk about it. I’m pretty sure it was a thing.
Not sure if it is airline specific or not, but when I last did this about 5 years ago, I was only allowed to do it because I had platinum status with the airline’s frequent flyer program.
In the early '80s, you paid for PeopleExpress flights on the plane ($19 off peak for Washington DC to Albany NY, $27 on peak). They took both cash and credit cards.
I’ve done the same thing, particularly on Southwest, and when not checking bags. (Meeting finishes early, so I get to the airport at about noon; see a flight taking off at 1pm and ask to take that flight instead of the one at 5pm that I was scheduled for.)
I took these shuttles a bunch of times. Air travel was more convenient and simpler back then in general, but on the shuttles you didn’t need any preparations, just get to the airport and get in line.
That’s right, and then Trump sold it to US Airways. That was a missing link in my chronology.
Now that you mention it, I have heard Hawaiian Airlines does (or at least did at one time) something like that for inter-island flights. You could buy a booklet of like 10 tickets good for travel to other islands. Presumably they meant for Hawaii residents who needed to frequently visit other islands.
When I was in college in Boston I used it all the time to get to New York and back. With a student discount it was something like $17 (in 1972 dollars.)
In the late '80s I flew from Newark to Boston all the time and took a shuttle-like plane. You needed tickets in advance, but they went every hour and it was often not hard to get an earlier flight, if there were seats available.
Much easier before security and before deregulation when you could change tickets without penalty.
