Waitlist flights
Waitlisting is a system used within the airline industry when flights and booking classes do not have seats available. It is quite common for passengers to cancel confirmed seats before departure, so airlines maintain a list of passengers who wish to be confirmed if seats become available.
When the status of a flight is waitlist only, the passenger will be waitlisted when you make the entry to sell the seat. If the airline can confirm the seat, they advise you by changing the status code in the itinerary and updating the booking file.
The class may display “0” or “L” to enable waitlisting. The following results are from the entry A18MAYSYDTYO.
Carriers may also have an interactive waitlist so when an interactive sell is requested and seats are not available, they return the sell entry with the following message:
If the waitlist is closed, no further action can be taken. If the waitlist is open, you may waitlist the seat with a manual entry. For example: N1A1LL or 01A1LL
If the carrier is not using Interactive Waitlist, you must select the class and the system will automatically return LL (waitlist) status.
In the following example, flight availability displays for travel from Sydney to Tokyo on 18 May.
Enter: A18MAYSYDTYO
The “P” class displays 0 seats available; selecting P class will automatically waitlist the flight. You can also use N1P1 (01P1) or N1P1LL (01P1LL). Then, enter *R to display the booking file.
Once the booking has been closed, if any passengers cancel, a notification is sent to the queue informing that the waitlisted flight has been confirmed.