Frequent Flyer Glossary

67 airline and travel terms, defined in plain English.

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7xx: An acronym used to refer to planes manufactured by Boeing, as all of their models are designated with a 7 _ _ number (e.g., 747 ).

A

Alliance: An Airline Alliance is a group of airlines with interline agreements that allow travelers to book codeshare flights and earn miles and receive status-based perks on all airlines in the alliance.
Amenity Kit: Amenity kits are given in First and Business Class on long haul routes, typically 5 hours or longer. They can range from elaborate and packed with products (cologne, perfume, moisturizer, eye shades) as in the case of many international first class flights, all the way to small and minimalist (toothbrush, toothpaste) in international economy cabins.
Angle-flat: Angle-flat seats convert from a seat into a flat surface but do not recline the full 180 degrees. Some people find these seats comfortable for sleeping, while others do not (including our whole editorial team...).

B

BIS (miles): B utt I n S eat miles, which are the actual miles flown with no class or status bonus. These are the basis for calculating redeemable miles and elite qualification miles .
Battlefield upgrade: A from of upgrade which takes place after the plane has been boarded but before departure. Can also involve a downgrade, such as when a passenger on an award is moved to the next cabin down to accommodate a revenue passenger.
Bump (also Bumping): This occurs when a lower tier or no-status passenger is bumped (rebooked) to a different flight in order to accommodate a higher status or fare class passenger. These typically involve compensation of some kind.

C

C (fare code): Generally equivalent to J , C is a business class fare bucket on many airlines, and is used by some Frequent Flyers when referring to travel in the business class cabin.
Codeshare: A flight which two or more airlines share with their own flight numbers that is flown by one of the airlines.

D

DYKWIA: The acronym for D o Y ou K now W ho I A m, which refers to travelers with elite status who feel and act entitled to special treatment.
Direct Flight: A flight that is under one flight number, which may be nonstop, but unlike nonstop flights can also include an intermediate stop. May or may not count as multiple segments for the purposes of qualifying for elite status based on segments instead of BIS miles.

E

EQM: Elite Qualification Miles - those miles earned which count toward elite status, often a different number from redeemable miles .
ETOPS: The acronym for Extended Operations certification, which for the average traveler basically means planes that are certified to fly certain routes outside a standard range from diversion airports (i.e., over the Pacific Ocean). Sometimes referred to as "Engines Turn Or Passengers Swim."
Enclosed Suites: Enclosed suites are first class suites that feature a door, allowing the passenger to achieve the ultimate in air travel privacy. Notable airlines offering enclosed suites include Emirates , Singapore , Etihad , Air France (full-height curtain), Korean Air , Asiana . Delta JetBlue , and Qatar Airways offer the only knon business class seats with a door enclosure, though these are much smaller than proper first class suites.
Equipment: Equipment refers to the plane itself, and each aircraft model has its own IATA and ICAO identifier. Equipment can refer to a specific model (e.g., 777-300ER) or simply an equipment class (777) that includes all sub model designations. Read more about various types of equipment here .

F

F (fare code): The fare bucket for First Class, this letter is used by many when referring to the first class cabin or flights in first class.
FA: Acronym for Flight Attendant.
FF: Frequent Flyer - anyone who flies on a regular basis and is a member of one or more airline loyalty programs.
Fare class/Fare bucket: Airlines use single or double letters to designate a fare class, such as J for business or Y for economy. This is worth paying attention to as not all fare buckets are eligible for upgrades, changes, etc. A sample list of fare buckets for delta is: .
Flow Control: Flow control is a common type of delay wherein the FAA or ATC will limit the number of aircraft that can depart for a given destination, generally due to weather minimums or restrictions. If you live in San Francisco and fly regularly, this happens to you...

G

GDS: Acronym for Global Distribution System, which basically provides a link between travel agents and OTA s for the purpose of viewing inventory/pricing and/or booking tickets. The three largest GDS are Saber, Amadeus, and Travelport (Apollo, Galileo, and Worldspan).
GMT: Also UTC (Universal Coordinated Time) or Zulu, GMT is Greenwich Mean Time and is sometimes seen in airline schedules.
Gaspers: Gaspers are your friend — these are air vents that are usually located above your seat, but sometimes they are found elsewhere, especially in the case of enclosed suites as found on airlines like Emirates .
Gate Lice: A term that frequent flyers, particularly those with elite status, use to refer to non-elite passengers who crowd the boarding lanes during preboarding or before their boarding group has been called.
Gateway: A gateway airport refers to an airport that serves as a connecting or origin airport to an international destination. A gateway may also be a hub for a given airline.

H

Hidden city ticketing: The practice of booking a multi segment ticket which has a stop in your desired destination city, but actually terminates in a different city, for the purpose of securing a lower fare than would otherwise be available between your origin and desired destination.
Hub: A hub serves as a transfer point for travelers, linking many cities to one in a hub-and-spoke pattern.

I

IFE: The acronym for In-Flight Entertainment, which takes the form of overhead screens, seatback/armrest screens, or personal tablets.
IRROPS: Also spelled IROPS, it is an abbreviation for Irregular Operations, which can include delays, cancelations, mechanicals, and equipment changes.

J

J (fare code): Like C , J is a fare bucket used by many airlines to designate Business Class, and is consequently used by many frequent flyers to refer to flights or tickets in that cabin class.

L

Lie-flat: Lie-flat seats recline a full 180 degrees to convert into a fully flat bed, and are generally considered to be standard equipment on top tier long-haul business class products these days.
Load factor: This refers to the percent utilization of a given flight or route, or set of routes, and is the result of an airline's <a href="https://www.seatlink.com/tools/frequent-flyer-glossary/revenue-management/">revenue management</a> strategy. For example, an airline might say "our SEA to LAX route has a load factor of 83" which means 83% of the seats on that route are successfully sold.
Long-haul: A long-haul flight is generally one that last longer than 6-8 hours, though the definition tends to vary from carrier to carrier. Alaska Airlines, for example, considered transcon flights to be long-haul.

M

Manufactured spend: The practice of using points credit cards to purchase cash-equivalent instruments (gift cards, reloadable debit cards, etc.) which are then redeposited somehow to pay off the credit card balance, for the sole purpose of earning points. Many points bloggers talk about the techniques, upsides (points!), and downsides (account terminations) of this practice.
Metal: Frequent flyer speak for "plane", Metal refers to the actual owner/lessee of the aircraft, regardless of the ticketing airline. For example, a British Airways ticket might be ticketed as British Airways but all or part of the itinerary might be on American Airlines metal (American Airlines planes...). This is important because mileage earnings and upgrade redemptions are often restricted to the home airline's metal (e.g., you can't use United miles to upgrade on Lufthansa metal).
Mileage run: Also known as MR, a mileage run is a flight taken for the sole purpose of earning either redeemable or elite qualifying miles. With the proliferation of revenue-based mileage accrual programs, viable mileage runs for redeemable miles are rare, while they can still be found for elite qualifying miles.

N

Nonrev: Refers to a non-revenue passenger, typically airline employees or family of airline employees. These seats are available on standby basis and are given away only after all revenue passengers have been accommodated as needed. The availability of these seats if often referred to as " Space A " or " Space Available ".
Nonstop: Nonstop flights are flights without stops between the origin destination. Nonstop flights are always direct flights , but not all direct flights are nonstop flights.

O

OTA: The acronym for Online Travel Agency, which includes sites such as Expedia, Booking.com, and Orbitz. Also sometimes seen as OLTA.
Oneworld Alliance: Also referred to as OW, the Oneworld Alliance was the second major alliance to be formed, with large airlines such as British Airways and American Airlines . Read more about OW here .
OpUp: An OpUp refers to Operational Upgrade. These occur in cases such as overbooking one cabin and upgrading passengers to the next cabin up from their ticketed cabin. An important distinction between OpUps and Upgrades is that OpUps happen without the use of any upgrade instrument, be it status, certificates, or miles.
Open jaw ticket: An open jaw ticket is a round trip ticket with at least three cities of arrival and departure. Example: JFK-LHR-IAD, with LHR being the stopover city, or LHR-JFK-EWR-LHR. These are booked when taking advantage of some award ticket bookings in which you are permitted to take an extended stopover in a city while still traveling on the same redemption, thus saving miles/points.

P

PIREPs: PIREPs is the portmanteau of Pilot Reports or Pilot Report, which are sometimes filed by pilots when they encounter noteworthy conditions such as turbulence and icing. Current PIREPs can be viewed on aviationweather.gov , and these can give you an indication of how smooth or bumpy your flight is likely to be.
PSU (passenger service unit): The passenger service unit (a.k.a. PSU) is located above each seat or row of seats and generally includes illuminated signs (seat belt, wifi/devices), air vents ( gaspers ), reading lights, and oxygen masks.
PTV: Acronym for Personal TV, a form of IFE in which passengers have personal seatback or console mounted video screens.
Partner: Airlines that have operating agreements but are not part of the same alliance are referred to as partners. An excellent example is Alaska Airlines which is part of no alliance but has partnerships with several airlines including Emirates , British Airways , and Korean Air .
Pax: Pax is an industry term for passenger or passengers. You will find this on some frequent flyer sites and occasionally overhear it from airline personnell.
Paxex: A combination of Pax (passenger) and Ex from experience, this word refers to the overall passenger experience on a given airline/aircraft. You can also find this hashtag used on twitter and instagram for tweets and posts related to the onboard experience.
Pitch: Pitch is the industry term for the forward distance between two seats, measured from the same point on each seat (e.g., seatback to seatback). More pitch means more space and legroom, less pitch means tighter quarters.
Purser: The purser is the head flight attendant on a given flight. They will often introduce themselves to you on international first and business class flights.

R

RTW: Acronym for R ound T he W orld, it can refer to simply circling the globe on a trip or a specific type of ticket that is booked with an airline taking the passenger all the way around the globe with a predetermined number of stops and no backtracking, from home country back to home country.
Recline: Recline is the backward movement of the seatback, and can be used to dinstinguish between good seats (full or lots of recline) and bad seats (seats with minimal or restricted recline).
Redeemable miles: Miles earned through flights or credit cards that can be redeemed for award travel or upgrades. Typically these are earned at a different rate than elite qualification miles .
Redeye: Not to be confused with the popular coffee beverate, Redeye flights are overnight flights, and while sometimes a welcome occurrence as in the case of TPAC or TATL flights, they can be quite brutal when short in length if you do not sleep well on planes.
Revenue management: Previously knows as Yield Management, Revenue Management refers to variable pricing strategy, which when executed perfectly is designed to ensure that a given airline sells 100% of the seats on its flight(s). A related industry term you might also hear is load factor .

S

SIGMETs: Like PIREPs , SIGMETs is a combination of Significant Meteorlogical hazards, which are inflight weather advisories for pilots covering a certain area. These serve as alerts for things such as convection (thunderstorms), turbulence, icing, and visibility, and can be viewed on aviationweather.gov . Look for TURB or CONV sigmets as indicators of potentially bumpy/turbulent areas of your flight, and plan your beverage orders accordingly.
Segment: Segment refers to a nonstop leg of a flight. These can be standalone as in the case of nonstop flights, or come in multiples for flights with stops between the origin and destination.
SkyTeam Alliance: The third major airline alliance with notable members such as Delta Airlines , Air France , and KLM . Read more here .
Space Available or Space A: These two terms refer to seats that are avialable for nonrev passengers.
Star Alliance: Sometimes abbreviated as "*A", Star Alliance is the world's largest airline alliance. For more on Star Alliance follow this <a href="https://www.seatlink.com/tools/airline-alliances/star-alliance/">link</a>.

T

TATL: An abbreviation for Trans-Atlantic, referring to flights that cross the Atlantic Ocean. This generally means flights to/from the United States and Europe.
TPAC: An abbreviation for T rans- Pac ific, referring to flights that cross the Pacific Ocean, typically to/from the United States and Asia/Oceania.
Transcon: This is an abbreviation referring to Trans-Continental flights, an example being a flight from Los Angeles to New York or Seattle to Miami.

U

Upgrade: This should be self-explanatory! It refers to being seated up one cabin from the original fare. Example: Premium Economy to Busines on international flights; Economy to First on domestic US flights.

W

W (fare code): W is commonly used to refer to international Premium Economy, as this is the fare bucket often used by airlines to designate the Premium Economy cabin. Other abbreviations include Y+ and Precon.

Y

Y (fare code): Y is the fare bucket used by most airlines to refer to full-fare economy tickets, and thus is used by frequent flyers when referring to seats or tickets in that cabin, even if the actual fare bucket may be different.
YQ: YQ refers to the fuel surcharges charged by airlines, which can sometimes be quite steep and are to be avoided as much as possible when booking award tickets.