What do airlines do with empty seats?

[kandb]

We are taking JetBlue down to MCO from NY this coming week. We are going down Tuesday and there is still many empty seats on our plane. The total of empty seats for the day is 215 for all the flights going down that day. I know some people can still buy seats but I am wondering if there is more of a chance that JetBlue will cancel one of the flights to put those people on the other planes for that day? I am sure airlines don't like to fly planes with 30 or more empty seats. It does seem that JetBlue does cancel flights a few times a week. Are they allowed to cancel a flight for any reason?

 

[Riddlepilot]

The seat map doesn't show how many people are on the flight just the seats that are available. Your flight could be full but the people just haven't selected a seat yet so all those seats show available to choose from. Also this close to departure there are a lot of moving parts so it's not really as simple as just canceling the flight. What about the people on the flight that plane turns into in MCO, what about the crew ending up where they need to be? In short I wouldn't worry.

 

[OKW Lover]

As @Riddlepilot notes, the chances of them canceling a flight because of it having a lot of empty seats is pretty much zero. The airlines plan out their schedules in great detail so that the planes are always landing, unloading, loading and then taking off again. That airplane NY needs to be in MCO on Tuesday so it can then go to some other destination. And its not just the aircraft itself that needs to move, its also the crew.

So - enjoy you extra room on the plane!

 

[Hopefully]

I agree with the others.
But to answer your question, yes they are " allowed " to cancel flights for whatever reason they choose

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

Lots of those empty seats will be filled by departure time.

 

[OrangeCountyCommuter]

I have been on flights where the seat map showed lts of open seats but the lines airline was begging for volunteers because they were oversold and flights where the seat map shows every seat full and I had an entire row to myself. Seat maps are useless to determine flight load

 

[Kaytie]

I am sure airlines don't like to fly planes with 30 or more empty seats. It does seem that JetBlue does cancel flights a few times a week.

As explained by others, each plane needs to get to the destination airport to fly waiting passengers somewhere else. I've been on a jetBlue flight with 150 seats, and 50 passengers. No, I didn't count. Flight was delayed and I had nice conversations with the Gate Agents. But the flight went, because it had to pick up passengers in Boston in the morning. Anyway, I think I had the last four rows entirely to myself.

 

[georgina]

I'm a bit suspicious of a cancellation we had a few years ago. We were in Orlando, and I got a call from SW that our 7 PM flight home that evening was cancelled, and we had to find another flight online. The only other non-stop was at 2 PM, so we had to quickly pack and head to the airport and lost the last day of our park visit. Obviously a plane did not need to go on that flight.

 

[kaytieeldr]

Could be there was a problem with that 7 PM plane at one of its earlier stops. Reasonably, it sounds like there were later connecting flights that you decided against? Anyway, airlines generally don't have spare planes hanging around in case of emergency.

goofy4tink has a similar experience involving her husband and their daughter.

 

[Disneytam]

My husband and I were on a Southwest late non stop flight from MCO to ALB NY one evening. As we boarded the flight attendants were telling us to feel free to spread out because the plane was less than half full. It was a very relaxing flight with all kinds of room. I did see that this year that flight is no longer offered.

 

[Mango9]

Highly unlikely that jetblue will cancel a flight because of low passenger loads.
Actually on Tuesday (08/22) there are only about 180 open seats all day (if flying out of JFK). Some of the seats might not be assigned to customers at this time, and will be at the airport or gate. This happens when people do not pick seats when they book travel, or when you book through a 3rd party site and the site doesn't offer this.
When you consider all seats for the whole day (1550). Its only about 11.5% empty so that is really not bad especially for a Tuesday. They will fill up a lot of the empty seats with non-rev (employees, and other airline employees).

 

[SirDuff]

I've flown on some fairly empty flights. Last month I flew to Germany and, though Business was pretty full, the back was empty. I asked the FA and she said that there were 23 people in Economy Plus (there are roughly 130 seats). Had three seats to myself with no worry about reclining all three (no one in the row behind me) and grabbed about 7 pillow and blankets to make myself a nice nest (I'm also 5'2" so flight pretty much straight across the three seats). Flight left at 11pm, so it was perfect sleep time. Flight one was fully booked in the back - but I got an upgrade (I have 1K status with UA) and ended up with an empty seat beside me. Good travel karma on that trip