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passenger count

indyvegman1
Explorer C

I'm trying to make an educated decision as to whether to book a flight or not. I have an auto immune disease and also take an immune suppressant. Does anyone know how to get a passenger count on a particular flight? I know the plane seats 175 passengers but without knowing how many seats are booked I don't what the percentages are. April 18th flight 2516

thanks for suggestions. keep hitting a dead end on the phone.  

7 REPLIES 7

Re: passenger count

bec102896
Aviator A

Unfortunately since this is primarily a customer to customer forum we don't have access to see how many people are booked on a given flight. 

 

With the current situation most flights are very empty as an example my flight from DAL to MCO (Orlando) in late march had 17 passengers. 

 

Back when flights were full I would search a flight for 8 people if it showed as sold out i knew it was a very full flight with 7 seats or less open if it had seats then there were at least 8 open seats. 

 

You could reach out to southwest on Twitter or Facebook and maybe they have a way to see how full a flight is. 

 

-Blake

Re: passenger count

indyvegman1
Explorer C

Thanks Blake

Re: passenger count

dfwskier
Aviator A

@indyvegman1 wrote:

I'm trying to make an educated decision as to whether to book a flight or not. I have an auto immune disease and also take an immune suppressant. Does anyone know how to get a passenger count on a particular flight? I know the plane seats 175 passengers but without knowing how many seats are booked I don't what the percentages are. April 18th flight 2516

thanks for suggestions. keep hitting a dead end on the phone.  


 

There is no way to answer your question, although there are lots of reports of planes flying with 0, 1, 2, or 3 passengers. Passenger traffic is down by 95%.

 

IMO, you are much more at risk walking thru an  airport   than sitting on a plane.

 

If you decide to travel, 

 

1) keep washing your hands.

2) don't touch your face

3) bring some disinfecting wipes with you to wipe tray table, armrests, seats, seatbelts, etc.

Re: passenger count

indyvegman1
Explorer C

there's a way they just won't tell you. They told me the plane had 175 seats on it with plenty available, but stop short of telling me how many so I could decide. thx

Re: passenger count

DancingDavidE
Aviator A

@indyvegman1 wrote:

I'm trying to make an educated decision as to whether to book a flight or not. I have an auto immune disease and also take an immune suppressant. Does anyone know how to get a passenger count on a particular flight? I know the plane seats 175 passengers but without knowing how many seats are booked I don't what the percentages are. April 18th flight 2516

thanks for suggestions. keep hitting a dead end on the phone.  


Part of the issue may be that they can (or have the ability to) tell you today what a count is but there's no guarantee that it would stay the same, especially if a flight were to be consolidated with the one you are looking at. 

 

I have asked this before and been told, although with the opposite looking at full flights and seeing if there are likely to be an empty middle for our lap child.

 

Try twitter? Explain the situation and that you aren't holding them to any final passenger count but that you just want to book on the loneliest possible flight available now.

 

 

Home airport MDW, frequent visitor to MCO to see the mouse.

Re: passenger count

ipsedixit
Frequent Flyer C

This is one way to find out.

 

Book the flight you want.

 

Remember that check-in is 24 hours before takeoff.

 

Check-in.

 

Look at your boarding pass number.  It will no doubt be in the "A" range.  Depending on how far back from A15 you are, you can pretty much figure out how many passengers are on the plane.

 

Why?

 

Because A1-15 are reserved for Early Bird and Business Select.  And no one these days are flying Business Select, nor doing Early Bird.

 

So the number of passengers will correlate to how far back you are from A15.

 

If your boarding pass is A20, then you can be pretty sure there are at least 5 other passengers on the flight with you, and probably not much more.  

 

I can't imagine many SW flights these days have more than 20, or even 10, passengers.

 

If for some reason you get a boarding pass in the "B" range, then you know the flight has least 45 passengers, if not more, then at that point you can cancel and rebook if you think flying with that many passengers might present a medical issue for you.

 

My past 5 flights in the last month all had less than 10 passengers.

 

Good luck, and be safe.

Re: passenger count

indyvegman1
Explorer C
ipsedixit thank you makes total sense.