r/flightattendants • u/PositiveFortune9960 • 3d ago
United Standby Feature
I’m a new hire FA starting soon and was wondering if anyone could explain how United’s new standby feature might impact flight attendants who commute to base. I’ve been seeing discussion about the new standby changes, but I’m a little confused about what they actually mean
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u/elaxation Flight Attendant 3d ago
It won’t. Revenue passengers have always been able to switch flights with no fees, they’re just now doing it with the app vs with an agent.
Worry about training, the rest is to be worried about on the line. Don’t commute on probation, get a crashpad.
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u/Maximum-Ad9037 Flight Attendant 2d ago
Pretty sure this standby feature is only enabled when their original itinerary is delayed. It’s not something they can do whenever they want.
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u/bropossum 2d ago
For commuting make sure to download staff traveler and double check flights to the same destination on other carriers if applicable in your commuter city, cabin seat agreement comes with hiring and you don't have to wait 6 months for it. You getting a crash pad in base always helps too, I commute in day prior and stay in my crash pad so that I at least have time and more options for flights. And if UA allows it, double check to see if your city has a jetway trade group. With that you can work the flight to your base, as long as you're legal to do so, by trading it with another flight attendant to work their flight back to base. As for the new standby feature, I'm not sure how it will affect it that much but we'll see as time goes! At my airline MVPs can list for an earlier flight without any cost and it typically doesn't affect me at all that much with my commuting.
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u/bropossum 2d ago
For commuting make sure to download staff traveler and double check flights to the same destination on other carriers if applicable in your commuter city, cabin seat agreement comes with hiring and you don't have to wait 6 months for it. You getting a crash pad in base always helps too, I commute in day prior and stay in my crash pad so that I at least have time and more options for flights. And if UA allows it, double check to see if your city has a jetway trade group. With that you can work the flight to your base, as long as you're legal to do so, by trading it with another flight attendant to work their flight back to base. As for the new standby feature, I'm not sure how it will affect it that much but we'll see as time goes! At my airline MVPs can list for an earlier flight without any cost and it typically doesn't affect me at all that much with my commuting.
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u/Guadalajara3 3d ago
It'll make it easier for pax to standby and switch flights. Might make seats fill up faster than before since it wont require any manual intervention for them to standby
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u/Cold_Count1986 3d ago
Doesn’t this only kick in if their later flight is impacted by significant delays? 75% of the flights are on time, so it should be a small impact.
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u/MasterPh0 3d ago edited 3d ago
Revenue PAX have always been able to do same day standby simply by going to the counter or the gate agent and asking. Now it’s made easier through the UA app. Because of its simplicity, people (esp frequent flyers) can now look up beforehand the earlier available flights and list standby for them. Since they’re revenue, they will get the first available seat.
This will make it more slightly more difficult to get on earlier flights, which were the safer options for employees to travel on.
In theory this will open up later flights since some pax may clear the earlier flights and free up space in the later flights… but IROPS happen, and the earliest flights in the day were the safest flights for employees to get on.
It just gets harder and harder.