What to ask on the application before you buy the ticket

A reason-for-leaving field will not tell you whether the last ticket was used. If you ask why they left, you get a mood. If you ask who bought the flight, whether they made orientation, and what the last recruiter will write about that start, you get a scene — or a hole that is already the screen.

Among the reviews carriers left on CDLScan, 6.0% mention paid travel with no arrival. That figure describes those reviews, not drivers in general: carriers write after a bad run, so the share tells you what shows up once someone bothers to report it.

That share is not a reason to refuse every flight. It is a reason to stop letting a clean packet do the work of a last start. The write-ups keep repeating week language: flight ticket, never showed, plane ticket, booked flight, drug test, stopped answering. Your application should pull that language out of the candidate before you buy a seat.

This is a screening playbook, not a legal memo. What you may ask, store, or decide is your counsel’s problem. If you need a rule, talk to yours. What I can tell you is which questions actually match the words previous carriers already type.

Why a reason-for-leaving field fails

A reason-for-leaving field invites a story. Never showed after a booked flight is an event. Those can diverge. A candidate can talk about home time, family, or a better offer and never name the airport. A previous carrier can later write that they bought a ticket and the candidate never arrived.

Verdict language in the reviews — stay away, waste your time, complete waste — is not the event either. I do not put a stay-away box on an application. I ask for a last start, a ticket, a clinic, a phone. The incident language is a week. How we separate incident from verdict is on the methodology page.

Official reports will not do this work for you. PSP holds crashes and inspections. An MVR holds license actions. The Clearinghouse holds program events. An unused flight is not a query result. Previous-employer forms often hold dates and a rehire box, and there is no box for someone who never got a truck. Hear the last start on the application, before you decide the packet is enough.

The share of reviews mentioning paid travel with no arrival moved from 1.7% in 2018 to 5.7% in 2025. I stop that line at 2025. The wording stayed blunt, and the form still has to ask for it.

Five questions, on the form, in this order

1. When did you last start, and did you make orientation?

Dates first, because a last start that never happened is the skeleton of this write-up. If they never arrived, you are in onboarding. If they arrived, took a truck, and later left it, you are in a different file. Do not skip this to be polite. A hole between two carriers is not a finding by itself. An unexplained hole plus a start date nobody can confirm is.

2. Did anyone buy you a ticket to that job, and did you use it?

This is the question a reason-for-leaving field cannot absorb. People who used a ticket they already disclosed can usually name an airport and a day. People who never used one often skip the flight, talk about the next job, or say they do not recall. You are not trying to trap them. You are trying to hear whether a seat was sat in. Flight ticket, plane ticket, booked flight, ticket never belong here.

3. Was a pre-employment drug test taken at that carrier, and what happened?

Drugs or alcohol sit in 31.3% of paid-travel reviews. A no-show sits in 27.5%. Flight ticket and drug test are not color in this category. They are often one week. If the file is asking you to buy a flight this week, the clinic question is part of the screen. If they can wait two days without a ticket, you have one kind of file. If the ticket is the job, you have another.

4. When did you last answer the phone on that hire, and who was trying to reach you?

Going unreachable sits in 15.6% of paid-travel reviews. Silence is often the last step you hear about, not the first thing that happened. If the candidate can name the day the phone died, you have a timeline. If they jump to a mood, bring them back to a day and a ticket.

5. What will the last carrier write about whether you showed and whether the ticket was used?

Asking only about travel catches what the candidate already plans to disclose. Asking what the last carrier will write catches the sentence that never became a filing. People who used the ticket can usually say the last desk will confirm it. People who never arrived often cannot say what the last recruiter will type.

I would not ask whether they are a flight risk. I would not ask for red flags. Both invite a mood. Mood is verdict language. You already know how that sounds, and it is not a fact about the driver.

Companions in the same reviews tell you which extra words to leave room for. In 31.3% of paid-travel reviews the carrier also mentions drugs or alcohol. In 27.5% they also mention a no-show. In 10.6% they also mention theft or money games. An abandoned truck sits in only 8.4% — against a 33.5% base rate, far below chance. Do not mash a walk-off into this form. The words themselves are in how carriers write about paid travel. The pairing with a no-show is in paid travel and a no-show. The climb in the share is in paid travel with no arrival.

What was already visible on the packet

On an application the warning is rarely the word travel. It is urgency around a ticket, a thin last job, and a previous carrier who will not say whether they ever arrived. Ask the candidate to walk the last start before you dial the last desk.

Typical sequence, built from how these reviews cluster, not from one person’s file: they want the flight this week. The last carrier is a short stint or a hole. Official reports are dull. You book the seat. The test is on the calendar. Then the language in the next review is never showed, flight ticket, booked flight. That sentence will not appear on the query you already pulled.

If they already dispatched and left a truck, switch screens. Do not run a ticket form and assume you covered a walk-off. That split is in why no-shows and abandoned trucks barely overlap.

What to do with the answers

Look the name up before you treat a clean paragraph as a pass. The application is cheaper when you already know whether previous carriers used never-showed next to a flight ticket. Asking a candidate to contradict a write-up you have not read is how you waste the only live conversation you will get.

If the last start is crisp — orientation, ticket, day, who paid — keep moving, and still read the name. If the last start skips the ticket and jumps to the next job, stop. If they already dispatched and left a truck, switch screens.

If the last carrier will only confirm that they never showed, that is not a pass. It is a reason to read the rest of the name. Check it on CDLScan before you buy a ticket. It takes less than a minute. The words you want on the application are already sitting there more often than the reason-for-leaving field will admit.

The longer call playbook is five reference questions that beat rehireable. This page is the form, not the phone.

This is not legal advice. It is a way to stop letting a clean packet do a ticket’s job.

Frequently asked questions

Is a reason-for-leaving field useless here?

It is useful as a story and weak as an event. A reason can disagree with a write-up about a flight ticket that was never used. Ask whether they arrived. Keep the reason field as extra, not as the screen.

Can I store these answers as a travel history?

That is a question for your counsel and your process, not for this page. I am talking about what to ask so you hear the event. What you store is a different job.

What if they refuse to say whether a ticket was used?

That is information. Then read what other carriers already wrote about the name. A missing airport is not a confession. It is a reason to stop treating the application as complete.

If PSP and Clearinghouse are clean, do I still need these questions?

Yes. An unused flight is not a filing. A clean packet means the filed items are clean. It does not mean nobody typed never showed next to a ticket.

Why ask about a drug test on a travel form?

Because drugs or alcohol sit in 31.3% of paid-travel reviews. Flight ticket and never showed are often one week on the way to a clinic. The clinic question is cheap and it belongs on this form.

Should I read the reviews before or after they ask for a ticket?

Before you spend. You want to know whether the language is already on the record so you can ask about a last start, not about a vibe.

Where do I look the name up?

On CDLScan, before the offer and before the spend. The week language — flight ticket, never showed, booked flight — is already written down. Use the application to see if the candidate will say it out loud.