What is ‘check-in chicken’? All about TikTok’s latest travel obsession

There’s no stopping the new TikTok travel trends. After terms like raw dogging and gate lice, a new travel trend is going viral all over the internet. The latest trend, known as check-in chicken, talks about a new strategy where flyers wait to book a seat until check-ins are almost closed in the hope of scoring the best seats available. You may get lucky with the extra legroom chair and exit row aisles in many cases.
According to Chelsea Dickenson, the cheap holiday expert, leaving at the last minute to check in online for a Wizz Air or Ryanair flight is usually the foolproof way to secure extra leg space or a seat up front. Dickenson claims that airlines charge extra to pre-book seats and split up parties traveling together by placing them in the bad seats, leaving the best spots on the plane up for grabs.
She mentioned, “ Essentially, what they do is they palm off the middle seats or the back of the plane in the hope that you will then pay to change your seat, and if you sit tight and wait, you will see that the only ones left are extra legroom seats and the ones at the front of the plane.” However, the last-minute strategy is not worth risking missing their flights and following TikTok trends.

The boarding hack is useful when “chickens” keep a beady eye on the check-in seating plan throughout the day; it also warns the travelers who are playing chicken not to leave it until the last minute, as an overbooked flight could leave you without a seat. Around 94% of planes are close to full, as Wizz Air and Ryanair both have a high average passenger load.

The check-in chicken boarding hack follows a restraint on gate lice by American Airlines. American Airlines announced that they are expanding their technology to control gate lice passengers with an itch to line up at the gate before they are called to board a flight.