Airline employees and some of their family and friends can also travel standby, often for free or at a significant discount. They typically have lower priority than regular passengers, and are given a seat after all regular fare passengers have seats.

The priority of flight attendants on standby depends entirely on whether they are traveling for work (deadheading) or for personal leisure (non-revenue travel). If a flight attendant is being moved by the airline to reach a specific city for work, they are given Positive Space or "Must-Ride" status, which places them at the very top of the list, even ahead of paying passengers in some emergency operational cases. However, for personal travel, flight attendants are "non-rev" passengers and their priority is determined by a hierarchical code system unique to each airline. Generally, employees of the airline operating the flight have higher priority than employees from "buddy" or "oneworld/Star Alliance" partner airlines. Within the employee group, priority is often further dictated by "time of check-in" or, more commonly, by years of seniority with the company. While flight attendants often have better access to jumpseats (the fold-down seats used by crew) than other airline employees, they still sit behind any paying passenger on the standby list. During peak holiday seasons, even the most senior flight attendants may find themselves unable to board a flight due to high load factors.