A United Airlines passenger flew from Huntsville to Houston on Wednesday evening and had her own private jet. She was the only one onboard, aside from the crew.
She describes one of the pilots as “such a goofy goober” and she got to visit the cockpit after the flight. She got her “own personalized pre flight announcements.”
Somehow the only person on my flight and the pilot was such a goofy goober
by
u/Sufficient_Fudge_280 in
unitedairlines
This route is operated with five peak daily 50-seat Embraer 145 regional jets, and operated by CommutAir for United.
The passenger writes that “they had to add sandbags to the cabin bc the plane was too light with only one passenger.” The issue here is weight and balance not that the airplane was actually “too light.” Aircraft have to be loaded so that the center of gravity stays within approved limits to avoid issues with control. Where passengers are seated, the placement of baggage, and fuel all affect center of gravity.
With just one passenger and almost no bags, a small regional jet can wind up outside the airline’s parameters unless ballast is added in a specific location. While “sandbags” aren’t weird in that sense (adding temporary ballast, including heavy canvas sand bags or lead shot to bring the center of graviy back within limits is common) that actually has to be secured so it cannot shift.
Ballast is usually added in the baggage or cargo compartment of an aircraft rather than the cabin. If it was actually in the cabin, it would have had to have been properly secured.
Everyone always thinks that airlines cancel flights because they haven’t sold enough tickets. That’s almost never true. They’re going to need the plane in the next city to operate the next flight. They’re going to need the crew in the next city, too, to continue their sequence. They could cancel the flight and if they don’t get the crew to that next city, if they just break the trip and send other pilots and flight attendants, they’re paying employees twice! So they send the plane. Besides, here it’s ‘just’ a small regional jet on a flight that’s less than 600 miles.
I’ve flown alone in first class many times, on Singapore Airlines; Thai Airways; Korean Air; ANA; Lufthansa and several others. But I’ve never had an entire aircraft to myself.
The closest I came was in the late 80s from New York to Cincinnati with just two or three other passengers after a series of delays and then my January 1, 2000 (“Y2K”) flight on United from Los Angeles to Washington Dulles flight was on a near-empty Boeing 777 because everyone else was afraid to fly that day.
When passengers do fly alone, it’s often on a regional jet because those are smaller, fewer passengers to begin with and often after significant weather delays which push other passengers on a flight either to cancel or rebook onto other aircraft. Although it’s also something that wound up happening a decent amount during the depths of the pandemic in April 2020 – instead of millions of passengers a day, on April 14, 2020 TSA screened a total of just 87,534 travelers.
That’s awesome. Great crew! (Oof, talk about a low yield…)
I was solo once a million years ago flying into Joplin, MO. I remember it was really windy out and we were bouncing around like crazy.
Another time I was on a flight to Anchorage and there were just three of us. Me and two strippers who were going up there to “work.”
Adding sandbags for W&B issues is nothing new BUT…in this case, it’s funny! Regional jets have a much smaller W&B profile. Years ago, one company’s pilots asked for sandbags to balance the light forward CG with the light passenger load. When asked, “where”, the response from the flight deck was, “Put the sand up front and the bags in the rear.” So (you guessed it) the new ramp person slit open the bags, poured the sand in the forward bag bin and put the “bags” in the aft bin. Needless to say, the jet had to be removed from service and 500 lbs of sand had to be vacuumed out of the forward bin and the jet inspected for damage.
When I was training to fly a Twin Commanche, there were actual sandbags in the luggage compartment.
On a recent Air Serbia turboprop, I was moved further back from my seat to help with the balance.
I was the only one on a flight from ORD to SNA right after 911. It was glorious!
I flew a lot during peak-pandemic season (required, not for fun) and was often one of 7 or 8 people on board a flight, but I recall in college (early 2000s) having a USAir flight connect in Charlotte for a flight to Raleigh (which flew about the height of tall buildings) and required stepping up into the seats from the sunken aisle where I was one of 2 people on board. We were welcomed by name and asked to relocate seats for balance purposes.
I once was the single passenger on the entire plane. I once could have been one of two on a 757 from Charlotte but I was flying a hidden city and getting off at Charlotte. I saw the gate agent and then told her that I have severe diarrhea and had to go….that I’d try to get back in time but not to wait for me.
In the 1990s I was once the only passenger on a 737 from Chicago to LaGuardia on Thanksgiving Day. The flight attendant moved me up to first class and even fetched me a meal (on a 1-1/2 hour flight). Nice to be pampered!
unless the flight was signficantly delayed, this account is evidence that UA’s massive growth plan is not working. They have added too much capacity to their system and are now being forced to reduce it because the market – even in the middle of summer – is not absorbing that much capacity esp. in light of large fare increases that have taken place over the past couple of months.
Aeroroutes – a great resource – says during the 74-day peak summer season, between 26JUN26 and 07SEP26, the airline on average reduces 6.9% flights for entire domestic system which is a 4.8% capacity reduction. These reductions include FAA flight caps but cuts are still being done at hubs such as IAH and DEN as well as LAX which are not under FAA flight caps.
As much as some want to believe otherwise, UA’s growth is stalled – right now because of higher fuel costs but also because of FAA restrictions.
As I have repeatedly said, UA’s massive and aggressive growth plan was never going to work; they would either dilute fares in their own hubs before other airlines would give up share that they have built up over years of serving these communities.
DL is the largest airline at HSV and had the only mainline service as of March 2026 when the DOT last released airport share data. AA had regional service as does UA but AA and DL’s size and hub promixity give them huge advantages.
UA is not achieving the domestic growth it needs to move above AA and DL in domestic share which has enormous implications given that UA has committed to massive fleet and terminal spending based on the clearly flawed notion that UA could grow its domestic network.
I wonder if there’s more to the story about why the plane was so empty. I live in Huntsville and flights in/out are usually quite full.
My closest comparison was Hong Kong to Taipei in a Cathay 777-300 with 6 other passengers. It was 2003, during SARS. HKG international arrivals coming in earlier was an eery ghost town.
Huntsville sits in a major space and defense contractor area. That’s why the flights are full!
@Tim Dunn seriously? You think that a major American airline went out with 1 passenger on a regularly scheduled flight in a non-essential service city? I mean we all know your opinions have become worthless b/c you are so blatantly biased and one-sided, but even using this to try to twist it into something it is clearly not is ridiculous. C5 and the 145’s are so unreliable. If only you knew common sense and logic….