Holds for this trip
How Many People Are Actually Flying
This answer holds from the moment it is settled until the party itself changes, which makes it the most stable of the three on this shelf and the one most often left loose on purpose.
- What the answer is
- The number of people who will board, counted as people who need a seat.
- How long it stays true
- Until the party changes. That can be weeks, and it can be the night before.
- What happens when it stops being true
- A different aircraft may be needed, and a different aircraft is a different price. Above certain counts the list of operators who can help gets short quickly.
Why a range is not an answer
An operator matching an aircraft to a party is not looking for a comfortable fit, it is looking at a hard limit. Ask about six to eight people and the honest reply covers eight, which may be a larger aircraft than six people needed and a price to match.
Ask about six and mean six, and the offer fits six.
Where the number starts to bite
Small parties can go on almost anything an operator has. As the count climbs the choices narrow, and past a point they narrow sharply, because the aircraft that seat larger groups are fewer and are booked further ahead.
Two things follow, and they are worth knowing before anybody asks:
- Notice matters more for a larger party. Not because of price, but because the aircraft that seat them are already committed.
- The quotes spread further. With few operators able to help, the answers come back further apart.
What is not recorded
Names beyond the person making the request, ages, nor a word about anybody's reason for going. None of that is any use here. What goes to an operator is a count, two places and a date.
What a late addition means
Before an aircraft is committed, one more person is a re-ask and costs nothing here. After it is committed, it is the operator's decision, and if the aircraft allocated will not take another person then it is a different trip rather than an amendment.
Answers that hold for this trip, one of three shelf lives in what a quote rests on