Non revving around Europe
- Thread starter TowJoe
- Start date
Cherokee_Cruiser
Well-Known Member
Yup, exactly my experience.
I got the same on an Austrian 767 from EWR to VIE. Plenty of seats available and I was able to select them the night before on a ZED ticket.
Get to Europe, train-it-up to your hearts extent.
Europe is about the size of an average Brazilian ranch so it’s probably more of a waste of time to involve airports. But our resident travel expert @Adler would have more relevant information than I would.
Adler
Low-Level Individual
By the time I saw this post it had turned into an Octoberfest thread, and I figured I was too late.
Trains are expensive, busses take forever, ZEDs are cheap.
I have short legs and would rather get somewhere 10 hours earlier by riding a coach ZED than nonrev maybe maybe but probably not getting first class. Lufthansa, Austrian, and Air France will get you just about anywhere in the world. Book a ZED, get a ticket for something in the back, hand a flight attendant $6 of chocolate from Trader Joes, and you just might find yourself in business class. The smilie faces are usually pretty accurate. Hundreds of thousand of miles on ZEDs, and I've only not made a flight twice; once in Hanoi when an employee showed up last second with a litter of kids, and another trying to get to the spring break capital of Europe, and even then the gate agent apologized saying the captain was in a bad mood and wouldn't let me in the Jumpseat. Speaking of which, yea, a lot of those carriers will take you in the cockpit.
All that said, if you know you're dates well in advance, you can buy some tickets on low cost carriers for less than the train ride to the airport.
Cherokee_Cruiser
Well-Known Member
I liked Trenitalia, good way to get around after flying Emirates JFK to MXP. That’s right, Emirates 
Cory Trevor
Well-Known Member
ZEDs in Europe are the way to go. Last year I had to get to Paris from Munich to go from Oktoberfest to the Ryder Cup, flights were packed. I showed up to check my bag and the CSR told me the flight was full and there were a couple other standbys ahead of me. Security took much longer than I thought and I showed up to the gate when boarding was already 3/4 of the way done. The gate agent said they were looking for me, asked if I was the airline employee or family member then asked if I was a pilot or flight attendant. After that she said, "Alright, you got the jumpseast." and sent me down the jetbridge. Went to talk to the pilots and they just take the flight attendant jumpseat and that was it, super easy and super accommodating and cool crews.