Every term this series used, plus the ones you'll hear at gates and in forums. Alphabetical, with attitude.
New to all of this? Start with Non-Rev 101, or browse the full non-rev travel guide.
Every term, A to Z
- ACMI / Wet lease
- An arrangement where one airline rents another's aircraft and crew to fly its routes. For you: still your booked airline's flight, agreement, and listing — you'll just board a plane in surprising colors. Trivia, not trouble.
- Authorized (AU)
- How many seats the airline is willing to sell on a flight, including overbooking. Can exceed the physical seat count, which is how a flight gets "booked 189 of 180."
- Bookable
- myIDTravel's word for confirmed travel: a guaranteed seat, where the agreement offers one. The travel-status toggle's other setting. Selecting it for an airline that doesn't offer it to you returns no flights — silently.
- Booking class / Fare bucket
- The letters (Y, B, M, J...) airlines slice their cabins into, each a price point. The numbers next to them show sale availability, not empty seats — and they don't add up across buckets.
- Buddy pass
- A standby pass an employee can give to friends or extended family. Lowest priority in the sky, travels on your reputation, taxed to your payslip in many countries. Issue accordingly.
- Cabin divider / The curtain
- On many short-haul aircraft (especially in Europe), the movable boundary between business and economy. Moves with demand; can convert business rows to 3-3 economy before departure. Read both cabins as one pool.
- Codeshare
- One airline selling another airline's flight under its own flight number. For staff travel: your ticket must be with the operating carrier. myIDTravel protects you from this; booking outside it doesn't.
- Commuter
- Staff who live in one city and work from another, flying standby weekly. The grandmasters of pattern knowledge; befriend them.
- Confirmed
- A guaranteed seat, as opposed to standby. Exists in staff travel as bookable fares, confirmed ID fares, and positive space. Often carries cancellation deadlines — calendar them.
- Embargo
- An airline blocking ZED/staff travel on specific routes or dates (peak weeks, events, chronically full flights). Usually invisible: flights simply don't appear in results.
- Fare level (ZED Low / Medium / High)
- The three price tiers a pair of airlines can agree on. Depends on the airline pair, not the route — and can differ per traveler category on the same flight. Compare before booking.
- First wave
- The earliest departures of the morning: no accumulated delays, no reaccommodated passengers yet, and a whole day of fallbacks behind them. The standby traveler's structural friend.
- ID90 / ID75 / ID50
- Industry-discount tickets: 90/75/50% off a commercial fare, on standby or confirmed basis depending on the agreement. The confirmed ones are your "must actually be there" tool.
- Imputed income
- The tax treatment (in many countries) of staff travel as a taxable benefit — usually for family and buddy travel. Arrives on a payslip months later, labeled cryptically. Now you know.
- Interline
- Staff travel on airlines other than your employer, via ZED and ID agreements. Where the whole planet opens up, and where you eat last.
- Jumpseat
- The fold-down crew seats in cockpit or cabin. Strict eligibility, crew discretion, captain's final word. For most readers: vocabulary, not a plan.
- Listing
- The record saying you intend to stand by for a specific flight. Not a seat, not a booking — an intent. One ticket can be re-listed across flights; listings mostly don't roll over when you don't board. Re-list fast.
- Loads
- How full a flight is: booked versus capacity. The central obsession of non-rev life. A snapshot of a moving target; read trends, not numbers.
- myIDTravel
- The industry's shared interline booking platform: search, buy, and list staff tickets on partner airlines. A vending machine, not a guarantee. Gets its own post for good reason.
- Non-rev
- Non-revenue passenger; you, this series, this life.
- No-show
- A booked passenger who doesn't turn up. Your invisible ally, concentrated on business and connection-heavy routes, nearly absent on leisure ones.
- OAL
- Other airline: any carrier that isn't your employer. "Flying OAL" = interline standby = bottom of their list.
- Onward ticket requirement
- Many countries' demand that arriving visitors hold proof of onward/return travel — enforced at check-in, where a standby listing may not count. The cheapest insurance in this series is a refundable onward fare.
- Open-jaw
- Flying into one city and home from another. With ZED one-ways, the standby traveler's structural superpower.
- Operating carrier
- The airline actually flying the aircraft, as opposed to one selling it under a codeshare. The only carrier that matters for your ticket and listing.
- Oversell / Overbooking
- Selling beyond physical capacity, betting on no-shows. When the bet fails, even paying passengers get bumped — and the standby list goes home.
- Positioning flight
- A short hop flown first, to reach a hub where your real options live. Fly it early; each leg is its own bet.
- Positive space
- A confirmed seat on a staff ticket — company business, some emergency provisions. The opposite of your usual life.
- Priority code
- Your rank in the standby hierarchy (S1, S2... — alphabet varies by airline). Determines order where full-ladder systems exist; means nothing at first-come-first-served carriers. Know which world you're in.
- Red-eye
- Overnight flight. Often lighter loads, and losing one still leaves the morning wave.
- Registered companion
- The one named person some airlines let a single employee designate for benefits. Usually changeable once a year — choose wisely.
- SEQ (sequence number)
- The number on your boarding pass showing check-in order: SEQ 001 checked in first. At check-in-time airlines, your ranking made visible.
- Standby
- Traveling without a confirmed seat; finding out at the gate. The default mode of everything in this series.
- The list
- The standby list at the gate, however this airline orders it. Cannot be argued with; can be read, predicted, and — with this series — respected into submission.
- Travel status
- myIDTravel's toggle between standby and bookable. Always present, even when bookable isn't offered — the number-one cause of mysteriously empty search results.
- ZED (Zonal Employee Discount)
- The multilateral agreement standardizing interline staff fares: flat prices by distance zone, regardless of commercial fares. The passport to the wider sky.