Finding Empty Seats on Busy Routes

July 15, 2007
PRACTICAL TRAVELER | TRANS-ATLANTIC FLIGHTS; Finding Empty Seats on Busy Routes
By MICHELLE HIGGINS
New York Times

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Flights between the United States and Europe are particularly tight in August, when travelers returning from vacations abroad are also competing with Europeans beginning their holiday trips to the States. And so far, botched car bombings in London and Glasgow don't seem to be deterring travelers to Britain. Anyone with the cash can pay more to stretch out in business or first class, but most travelers end up in coach, smushed up against a window, bumped by beverage carts in the aisle or worse -- in the dreaded middle seat. But even without an upgrade or elite status in a frequent-flier program, it's possible to nab a spot on a plane with plenty of empty seats -- if you know what to look for.

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Some of the least-packed planes to popular European destinations are flown by airlines you might not think of. Take Los Angeles to Frankfurt. It's no surprise that the German carrier Lufthansa is one of the most popular airlines on that route. Last August, 90 percent of its seats were filled, according to Back Aviation Solutions, an industry consulting firm. But Air India, which flies that same route on its way to New Delhi, was only half full last August. (While it's difficult to predict how full a particular flight will ultimately be this summer, Frederick Roe, regional manager at Back Aviation Solutions, said that taking a look at how full planes were on a given route last summer ''can be indicative'' of what to expect this year.)

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Flying to Paris? Consider Air Tahiti Nui. While Air France was carrying loads of about 90 percent from Kennedy Airport to Paris de Gaulle last July, Air Tahiti Nui, which last summer started flying from Kennedy to Paris on its way to Tahiti, flew planes about 59 percent full. Air New Zealand is another surprise. ''We find that hardly anyone in North America knows that we fly L.A. to London,'' Karen Laugesen, a spokeswoman for the airline, wrote in an e-mail message. ''The fact we're called Air New Zealand must throw people; no one expects it.'' The airline's capacity on that route has just expanded, she added. Since the carrier swapped the 777s it was flying along the route for 747s, there are now 73 more seats per flight.

Vayama.com, a new Web site dedicated to international travel, is a good place to look for such counterintuitive combinations. You can also check online seat maps, found at just about any airline site, before booking your ticket to gauge how many empty seats are left, though that doesn't mean they won't fill up by the time you fly. A word of caution: Be sure to avoid flights just before or after national holidays for foreign carriers, even if you aren't headed to the airline's base country.

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Foreign airlines, too, have been expanding with new routes. Zoom Airlines, which has been operating low-fare flights between Britain and Canada since 2003, just started operating daily flights from Kennedy Airport to London Gatwick. Qatar Airways, the national carrier of Qatar, has been heavily promoting its new service from Doha, its capital, to Newark via Geneva. And Air France just started flying between Paris and Seattle.

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