What was your flight with the least number of passengers?

JDarby · Post by **JDarby** » 24 Jul 2004, 23:52

The flight with the least number of passengers for me was in 1974.
An Egyptair flight Cairo-Kinshasa (B707). There were only 3 passengers
on it. We were all moved to first class and tended on by 5 FAs. That air
link was political in nature, since Egyptair was/is a government owned
airline. I was told by one of the FAs that on one of those flights, they had
the grand total of ONE passenger. Suffice to say that the air link didn't last long after that.

nwa757 · Post by **nwa757** » 25 Jul 2004, 00:07

I flew on a Skyway (Midwest Connect) Fairchild Dornier 328JET from Milwaukee to Green Bay and it only had about 6 passengers.

Post by **luchtzak** » 25 Jul 2004, 01:26

Many years ago I did a few scheduled flights with 0 passengers.

JDarby · Post by **JDarby** » 25 Jul 2004, 02:28

luchtzak wrote:Many years ago I did a few scheduled flights with 0 passengers.

WOW, are there any rules for flight cancellation due to lack of passengers?

flyinghigh · Post by **flyinghigh** » 25 Jul 2004, 04:53

When : December 1999 (a week before Christmas)
Flights : ATH-FCO-ATH
Company : CRONUS (later owned by AEGEAN)
Aircraft : B-737 single class
Total passengers : 6 (4+2) excluding me and my parents
Explanation : the first scheduled, but unadvertised, CRONUS flights to Rome. Plus, most of the Greeks thought that CRONUS was a foreign company and decide to flight OLYMPIC as FAs was Greeks. At that time CRONUS offered half price tickets to FCO compared to OA.

JetB · Post by **JetB** » 25 Jul 2004, 10:06

Long time ago, United Airlines from London heatrow to Brussels, Boeing 767 only 7 pax.

ILS25L · Post by **ILS25L** » 25 Jul 2004, 10:12

Goodmorning,
I had a flight more than 2 years ago with only 10 pax on board.
Sadly, it was a MXP-BRU flight on 27/01/2002 with former SN Avro
OO-DJO.
Another remarkable flight was in 1996 when I flew domestic in Honduas on Islena Airways with a LET140 with only 4 persons on board. Trip was taking us from San Pedro Sula to Roatan.
Greetz, Karl

Captain · Post by **Captain** » 25 Jul 2004, 11:08

I flew from Marrakech to Brussels with Sobelair in the mid 1990's. ONLY 13 people on board. Pilot asked everyone to sit in the front and service was good throughout.

Strange there we so few customers as this was the week before christmas! During the flight some people told us another flight to Brussels had taken off a few hours earlier (with enough room to fit us on it). No wonder Sobelair went bust, it was badly organised noticed a similar case about 2 years ago.

Captain

moons · Post by **moons** » 25 Jul 2004, 11:53

1999, 757 of BA on route LHR-EBBR
I think we were with 10-15 passengers...
But I've a question about the flights of BA on that route...
Some time ago, around October and November 2003 they got 767's flying on that route, but why?!
Why are they using big planes when they know the flight will never be full?!

qnnm · Post by **qnnm** » 25 Jul 2004, 17:59

8 feb 1993
Warsaw - Krakow
SP-LHC TU 134 Lot
2 pax

bae146be · Post by **bae146be** » 25 Jul 2004, 18:14

First SN brussels airlines flight to Florence, 0 pax out, 2 inbound (didn't know Sabena was declared bankrupt). The day after to cph: 0 pax out, 1 pax inbound.

Flying_Dutchman · Post by **Flying_Dutchman** » 25 Jul 2004, 19:59

For me in 2002, KLM flight KL837 AMS-SIN-CGK.
Almost all passengers had left the plane in Singapore, so we departed to Jakarta with an almost empty plane. It was nice to have many empty seats in a B747.

Zorba · Post by **Zorba** » 25 Jul 2004, 20:07

Hope this counts :

When I was visiting the tarmac at BRU with my dad, we went into a VG Airlines A330, I guess only 10 passengers (could be 20 MAX) were on board ... too bad

I guess it's not nice and very expensive too opperate a A330 or any other plane with so less passengers

Kind Regards,
Rutger

Captain · Post by **Captain** » 25 Jul 2004, 20:17

moons wrote: But I've a question about the flights of BA on that route...
Some time ago, around October and November 2003 they got 767's flying on that route, but why?!
Why are they using big planes when they know the flight will never be full?!

That's not entirely true. I've often flown with BA on a Friday from LHR-BRU and the load factor was often 75-100%. Main reason is all the journalists, European Union staff, people living/visiting Brussels, etc... who fly back to London at the end of the week. This was why they needed such a big aircraft instead of adding a new aircraft to their daily schedule. LHR is v. busy on a friday and landing slots are expensive.

Unfortunately in the last 6 months BA has lost the battle with Eurostar since they're now 25 min quicker to London. The CEO of BA actually used those words and when I last flew to BRU we were on a smaller plane: A319. What a shame, but that's what happens when there's competition.

Captain

BlondeLeffe · Post by **BlondeLeffe** » 25 Jul 2004, 23:52

A few years ago, an early morning Lufthansa flight from BRU to MCH, with 7 POB, including me and 4 colleagues from the same company. (Our headquarters are in MCH)

Post by **sn26567** » 26 Jul 2004, 10:07

20 years ago, ANR-BRU on a Sabena 737-200. Two passengers aboard: my wife and I! With four FAs.

Explanation: continuation of the LHR-ANR flight, only on Friday night, to bring back the plane to BRU for the week-end flights.

Comet · Post by **Comet** » 26 Jul 2004, 12:14

Relative to the size of the aircraft I have to say a less than quarter full Boeing 747-400 between Sydney and Auckland. On a smaller aircraft this would have meant alot of passengers, but on a large 747 it seemed quite empty.

Air_Lac · Post by **Air_Lac** » 27 Jul 2004, 07:43

Hi everyone,

BRU-ZRH on 9 February 2004 with Helvetic Airways (inaugural flight)
1 passenger (= me), and even I had not paid for the ticket (won it on a Helvetic online competition).

The flight back ZRH-BRU also on 9 February 2004 had already a 100% increase (there was one more passenger

)

Air_Lac

waldova · Post by **waldova** » 21 Aug 2004, 22:17

I've seen a flight leave from brussels to Zurich with only three passengers on Helvetic. It seems that this was the reason why they stopped flying from Brussels because almost nobody took this airline from Brussels

B737229 · Post by **B737229** » 22 Aug 2004, 00:23

I once did the BRU -> Paris Orly flight , with 2 other pax!
Flight was operated by Sabena, with an RJ85