Woman is only passenger on holiday jet from Glasgow to Crete

[whole diary]

[Chris from Nailsea]

From the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page):

Woman is only passenger on holiday jet


Karon Grieve was given the VIP treatment during her flight on Sunday

A woman who paid just £46 for a flight to Crete has spoken of her amazement at being the only passenger on board.

Karon Grieve, from Dunlop in Ayrshire, described her Jet2 flight from Glasgow to the Greek island - which normally carries 189 passengers - as "surreal".

She was given the VIP treatment after two other passengers booked on the flight failed to turn up.

Jet2 said it was "not unusual" for the final flight of the season to have fewer bookings than normal.

Ms Grieve, who was travelling to Crete to write a crime novel, said it was immediately obvious there were very few passengers when she turned up at the airport for her 16:30 flight on Sunday.

She told the BBC's Good Morning Scotland programme: "I turned up at the check-in desk and was joking with the staff, saying 'how many people are on this flight?' The guy was laughing at me and he said 'oh come on, guess'.

"We got it down from 10 to four and he said 'you'll never guess it, there's only three of you'. But when I got to the actual gate, the other two people hadn't turned up."

Ms Grieve said that, because she was the only passenger, all of the flight crew knew her name. She said: "We were all on best friend terms before we'd even got on the plane. The captain was fantastic. She came and sat beside me while the first officer did all the flight checks and we were chatting away about the flight."

While the plane was in the air, Ms Grieve said that the captain addressed her by name from the cockpit. She said: "Every time she made an announcement she said, 'Hi there Karon, you'll see Croatia on your left-hand side', and then we flew through this amazing lightning storm and she suddenly came on and said, 'Hi Karon and the girls, quickly run to the other side of the plane and look at this, it's amazing'. It was just surreal".

Ms Grieve said she intended to spend the next month in Crete writing her book before returning to Scotland. However, she acknowledged the chances of experiencing a similar return journey were remote.

A spokeswoman for Jet2 said: "This was our last flight to Crete from Glasgow Airport this year, marking the end of a very busy and successful season. We're delighted that Karon got to experience our VIP customer service in style onboard our award-winning airline.

"It is not unusual for the final outbound flight of the season to have fewer bookings than normal, and the return flight back to Glasgow was completely full with customers returning from a lovely holiday. We hope Karon has a fantastic time in Crete and that we got her trip off to a great start."

[John R]

Probably not as much of a story as you might imagine when you think about it. The last return flight will always be empty going out in the same way that the first flight out of the season is likely to be empty coming back. (That's assuming there's really only a one-way flow of passengers flying out of the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) on holiday.)  It'll be all built into the airline's business plan.

[Western Pathfinder]

Kind of reminds me of the time that I went with a mate to see a film at longwell green
We were the only two people in the cinema when he got up to go for a leak the projectionist stoped the film until he came back !.

[trainer]

I flew on the last flight of the season from Bristol to Olbia a couple of years ago (returning another way...another story).  There were 11 of us on board plus crew.  The stranger allocated the seat next to me asked if he could move to an empty row (I know  ) and was told of course but not until the plane has completed take off and he needed to return for landing. Apparently the computer allocates seats to evenly distribute load for these manoeuvres. I learned something.

(By the time we reached a decent height we were having a good conversation so he stayed. )

[JayMac]

Kind of reminds me of the time that I went with a mate to see a film at longwell green
We were the only two people in the cinema when he got up to go for a leak the projectionist stoped the film until he came back !.

Crikey. A projectionist? That would have been a while ago. It's all digital, computer controlled projection equipment these days. Films arrive at the cinema on hard drives and a minimum wager plugs that into the projection equipment.

[Chris from Nailsea]

To be fair, though, the example given was Longwell Green. 

[Thatcham Crossing]

Apparently the computer allocates seats to evenly distribute load for these manoeuvers

In a former life, I was qualified to do "weight and balance" on various large transport aircraft - manually using trimsheets, rather than in computerised fashion - in most cases a lightly loaded aircraft is much harder to "trim" than a fully loaded one.

Some are naturally a bit "nosey" (nose heavy) and some "taily" (the other way), and this has to be taken into account when distributing the "self-loading freight" and other elements of the payload. Fuel (quantity, and where it's put) can have a big impact aswell. Concorde apparently had to move fuel between tanks in flight to keep in "trim" as it burnt it, and transitioned from subsonic to supersonic flight, and back again. On one 3-engined widebody that I worked on, we had to load a pallet of concrete slabs in the front hold to help the trim if it was lightly loaded (known unimaginatively as the "ballast pallet")!

[LiskeardRich]

My Grandad lives in Crete, he has often used such flights to come to the uk or go back, against the normal flow of uk airlines.

He came over here on the first service of the year a few years ago for 1p plus taxes. There were no uk based holiday makers out there as it was the return leg of the 1st uk-Crete of the year.

[TonyK]

I've been the only person on a plane quite a few times, and I never got drinks.

[stuving]

I've been the only person on a plane quite a few times, and I never got drinks.

What, even if you go and sit in the back?

[Bmblbzzz]

I was once one of about four passengers on an international coach service, Poland to London. That was just before Christmas, it was actually an extra service put on to bring the Polish crowds home for the holiday. It wouldn't happen now (this was about 2000) because of cheap flights, and it wouldn't happen on those either because movement patterns have changed.

[patch38]

Crikey. A projectionist? That would have been a while ago. It's all digital, computer controlled projection equipment these days. Films arrive at the cinema on hard drives and a minimum wager plugs that into the projection equipment.

Even the hard drives are becoming rare these days: a lot of content is delivered to a library server on site by satellite or fibre and is remotely loaded by a Network Operation Centre. Even so, there are a few projectionists left in the industry and are in high demand when the likes of Chris Nolan puts out 70mm releases. A friend of mine refers to himself as ‘Last Projectionist Standing’

[TonyK]

I've been the only person on a plane quite a few times, and I never got drinks.

What, even if you go and sit in the back?

I couldn't sit in the back, as I wouldn't have been able to reach the controls. Whilst a hip-flask of gin may help  to soothe the nerves of the passengers, it isn't recommended for the pilot.

[PhilWakely]

I couldn't sit in the back, as I wouldn't have been able to reach the controls. Whilst a hip-flask of gin may help  to soothe the nerves of the passengers, it isn't recommended for the pilot.

Is that a specific recommendation for your passengers? 

[TonyK]

I couldn't sit in the back, as I wouldn't have been able to reach the controls. Whilst a hip-flask of gin may help  to soothe the nerves of the passengers, it isn't recommended for the pilot.

Is that a specific recommendation for your passengers? 

You would have to ask them, or at least the ones who can still communicate.