Friday, March 27, 2009

Once again

The last night of airport standby each week this month has resulted in me being sent out for an overnight. This is working against what I planned. I was supposed to be at home on reserve tomorrow.

I was sitting in the airport watching Seinfeld DVD's while keeping an eye on the flights. The weather took a dive and high winds reduced the airport to one runway (they normally have many times that!). The flights still looked covered.

After about 3 hours I decided to head to the crew room to update my Jepp charts. My phone rang. Unknown. Nice. I was assigned a flight to the northeast again. I grabbed my updates and headed to the plane. When I left the crew room the flight only had myself and two flight attendants listed....no Captain.

I went down to the plane. No ground power. I did my preflight and then fired up the APU. The flight attendants arrived and the passengers began boarding. I went up to the gate and grabbed our release and had the plane setup so the Captain could walk on and be almost ready to go.

At departure time there was still no Captain. I made a PA and apologized for the delay. About 15 minutes later the Captain arrived. He had been called in from home.

He reviewed the paperwork and away we went. The winds were still gusting. He took off with a 25 knot direct crosswind.

The flight was fine. One odd thing walking into the hotel.

I noticed a group of "short people" (what's the PC term nowadays?). Then I looked around the lobby...full of "short people". Apparently there is a convention in town. Brought a smile to my face. Can't say why.

Reduced rest overnight. Nighters.

I'll get to Yoman's question tomorrow.

A buddy of mine just let me know another regional airline is furloughing 75 pilots.

1 comment:

  1. This might have already been asked, but I heard from the regional airline pilot discussion board that a certain regional might be furloughing approx. 100 pilots also, mostly from the ERJ/EMJ. I take it this won't affect CRJ pilots since that airframe is not being reduced?

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