I haven’t done it in decades, so I don’t know if it’s changed, but there used to be an option called flying standby. You’d buy a ticket without a seat assigned, and you’d just go to the gate and wait to see if a flight went to your destination with an empty seat you could claim. It was cheaper, but no guarantee of getting a flight.
That’s only really done now for nonrevenue (employee) travel and changes in existing itineraries (trying to get an earlier flight, getting rebooked to a full flight because you missed your connection and that’s the next one, etc)
Some flights during certain seasons (spring break in Florida, for example) are so full that you hardly stand a chance of getting on, and of course that’s the airlines’ fault
I haven’t done it in decades, so I don’t know if it’s changed, but there used to be an option called flying standby. You’d buy a ticket without a seat assigned, and you’d just go to the gate and wait to see if a flight went to your destination with an empty seat you could claim. It was cheaper, but no guarantee of getting a flight.
That’s only really done now for nonrevenue (employee) travel and changes in existing itineraries (trying to get an earlier flight, getting rebooked to a full flight because you missed your connection and that’s the next one, etc)
Some flights during certain seasons (spring break in Florida, for example) are so full that you hardly stand a chance of getting on, and of course that’s the airlines’ fault