Vincent Peone/Twitter
- A Delta passenger experienced the private jet life when he was the only customer on his flight from Aspen, Colorado, to Salt Lake City, Utah.
- Vincent Peone posted a video to Twitter showing how personalized and surreal the whole experience was.
- Because the FAA requires all commercial flights to follow certain procedures, the flight attendants still went through the normal welcome and safety presentations — with a few little modifications for Peone.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
A man got to fly on a "private" jet last week when he turned out to be the only passenger booked on his Delta flight.
Vincent Peone, a New York City-based writer and director, was taking a 7 a.m. Aspen, Colorado, to Salt Lake City, Utah. In a video posted to Twitter, he chronicled the unique experience of being the only passenger booked on flight DL3652, a Delta connection flight operated by SkyWest Airlines.
The video starts with unique announcement at the boarding gate.
"Will the only passenger on this flight kindly board at this time," the Delta gate agent said.
As Peone walked from the terminal to the plane, he asked the attendant whether she had ever seen a flight with just a single passenger.
"Yes, I have," she replied.
The fact that it had happened before didn’t seem to put a damper on Peone’s experience, though. After he walked up the steps to the boarding door of the CRJ-700 plane, he filmed ramp workers loading what appeared to be sand bags into the plane’s cargo hold.
"We’re just adding weight to the plane because there are no people," he narrated.
The flight attendant’s welcome announcement was also modified for the unusual situation.
"Good evening, Vincent, and welcome aboard," she said (likely misspeaking, as the flight number shown in the video is a morning flight). "We look forward to taking care of you today."
"To ensure an on-time departure, please remain in your assigned seat," she added, as Peone panned the camera down to show himself in what appears to be a first class seat.
He ended the video by visiting the cockpit and thanking the pilots, and filming a bit more from the safety announcement.
While one might expect an airline to simply cancel a flight with just one paying passenger, flights like this usually proceed as scheduled so that the airline can get the plane and its crew to the destination, in order to operate later flights. Cancelling the one flight would cause a complex set of logistical challenges as the airline would have to find a way to cover later flights without the equipment or staff in the right place.
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Source: Business Insider – dslotnick@businessinsider.com (David Slotnick)