Every once in a while you’ll read a headline that makes you stop for a second:
- Passenger enjoys entire plane to himself on Philippines Airlines flight (January 2016)
- Traveler gets 188-passenger flight to Italy all to himself (April, 2019)
- Lone passenger on U.S. flight gets VIP treatment (April, 2020)
- I was the only passenger on an international flight (January 2022)
- Woman treated to private jet experience after being only passenger on board (July, 2023)
I mean, we’re not talking about some rich person who owns their own plane (or like John Travolta, who has lots of planes and several different pilot’s licenses to fly them) and decides to fly it from Point A to Point B. This isn’t even a rich dude who rented a private plane for the day.
This is an ordinary person, like you and me, who was scheduled to be on a commercial flight and, I dunno, they must win the Plane Lottery or something and, for reasons, they’re the only passenger on the plane. For some of you, the first question in your head is probably:
How does this even HAPPEN?
Obviously, the decision to fly a more-than-99%-empty plane is based on more than just headcount. Airlines also take other things into consideration.
The next day’s flight:
Sometimes the number of passengers on a plane is less important than repositioning (read: getting that plane to the next city it’s supposed to be in) for the next morning’s departure. Sometimes the last flight of the night, that’s going from a hub to a small city will have very few people on it (yay, they get to stretch out!), but the plane still needs to get there because the next morning’s flight is sold out.
The cargo:
On some flights, there could be hardly any passengers at all, but the cargo holds are full. Revenue from that cargo will more than makeup for the lack of passengers in the cabin.
Mandatory maintenance:
Planes, their flight crews and mandatory maintenance are all scheduled months in advance. That maintenance needs to be done at the time it’s scheduled, or the plane could be out of compliance. So it really needs to be in such-and-such a city on such-and-such a date so it can go through its pre-scheduled maintenance. If that means there’s only a small (or very small) number of passengers on the plane on its way to its scheduled maintenance, so be it.
Weather issues:
When disruptions happen, like weather or a mechanical issue, the airplane is routed back to its original route as soon as possible to minimize the effect on the overall operation.
In other words, yeah, it happens.
Here’s what happened…
I recently learned about another one of those “I was the only one on my flight” things. I figured it was just another “same old, same old,” but this guy’s story was a little different because he went allllll the details.
Back in June, Phil Stringer had an early morning American Airlines flight from Will Rogers Airport Oklahoma City (OKC) to Charlotte (CLT). Stringer is the CEO of a real estate brokerage and also consults with businesses about using AI. He travels a lot for work, so he’s used to the occasional hiccoughs of travel.
Unfortunately, weather issues caused more than 9,000 flights to be delayed that day, Stringer’s flight included. His flight was delayed, bit by bit, throughout the day. So he hung out at a nearby Starbucks most of the day, and when it closed, he made a nearby table his home base.
Finally, 17 hours and 52 minutes later, his plane was finally ready to take off, so they called him (BY NAME!) to go to the gate. When Stringer got to the gate, he was the only one there.
“I had thought that everyone had boarded and I was late, because no one was there,” Stringer told NPR in a Zoom interview. “But [the gate agent] was like, ‘No, honey, you’re the only one left.'”
All the other passengers had either boarded other planes, or had given up for the evening. So it was just an Airbus A321, the pilots, 4 flight attendants and…him. And they had to get the flight crew from their hotel!
“I almost felt badly because I was like, ‘Man, they’re going to fly this whole plane for one person. Like, that’s such a waste,’ ” he told NPR. “And then two minutes later, the whole flight crew walks in and they look and they see that I’m the only person. They’re like, ‘Are you freaking kidding me?'”
Meanwhile, Stringer posted a video of his unusual experience, so we could all see what it was like:
@phil.stringer 18-hour delay turned this flight into a private party! ✈️🥳 Watch how the amazing crew and I made the most of it! #americanairlines #flightattendant #airplanetiktok #privateparty #FlightFun #delayedflight #fyp #viral
“I’m the only person on the plane and they have an entire flight crew, they don’t want to do this flight,” he laughed into the camera. “They pulled them from the hotel to come do this flight for just one person.”
You could tell that Stinger was having a blast, but it seemed like even the employees involved in the flight were having fun.
A baggage handler grinned when Stringer asked how many bags he had to load for that flight.
“One.”
A flight attendant laughed when Stringer pointed the camera away from the pre-flight safety check, saying, “You’re not paying attention!” And everyone gave the FA a round of applause for modeling the life jacket, “In the unlikely event of a water landing.”
“We were like, look, we can either be negative about the situation and make a bad situation worse by our attitude, or we can be positive, lighthearted … and try and make something of this and at least just have fun,” Stringer says. They chose to be goofy and have fun with the moment.
According to FlightAware, the flight landed in Charlotte at 3:21 a.m. Monday, a mere 17 hours and 31 minutes after its scheduled arrival.
Oh, and by the way, Stringer’s luggage got lost.
@phil.stringer Replying to @Katie people joked about them losing my bag on a flight where there was just one bag….well, heres part 2 to the story! 😆💀 ended up finding it, but it took some time 😅🧳 #americanairlines #lostluggage f#flightattendant#airplanetiktok #privateparty #flightfun #delayedflight #fyp #viral #philstringer
“My bag actually did get misplaced for about 45 minutes in Charlotte,” Stringer said. “I was like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ We lost the one bag that we had on the plane.”
Stringer said he had a great time and he hoped he was able to help the flight attendants have a good flight, despite being roused out of bed to make it.
“We joked, we laughed, we cut up. I exchanged phone numbers with them, like we’re still literally texting today and group messaging,” Stringer said. He even bought plane tickets to visit them at their home base in Dallas the next month.
Meanwhile, Stringer says he’s been approached by television producers who want to make episodes about his experience. He even got an invitation to join the celebrity video-sharing platform Cameo.
@phil.stringer From viral tiktok flight to an invite to Cameo 😆👀 #cameo #cameocommunity #viral #fyp #philstringer #fypシ
And Delta started sucking up to him, too LOLOL! (they even offered him free access to the lounge!!!)
@phil.stringer Did somebody say DELTA? ✈️ Enjoyed the warm welcome from @delta’s stellar team – talk about rolling out the red carpet! 🛬✨ Excited to see what surprises @americanair has up their sleeves next – maybe a private jet upgrade? 😉🛩️ #fyp #fypシ #deltaairlines #americanairlines #friendlyflights✈️
By the way, the reason this plane was still taking off? “Cargo.” Whether he was there or not, the plane still would’ve taken off.
Anyway, so yeah…that’s what happened. His plane was 18 hours late, the flight crew had to be woken from their beds…and everyone had a good time (even though they couldn’t find his luggage for almost an hour).
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