Friday, October 3, 2014

Not even close

Kinda tired. Day 2 of a 2 Day trip.

Yesterday was busy. My wife was out of town for work and was supposed to arrive at 4:30 PM. My report time for my trip was 4:20 PM. Not a big deal except we have a 4 year old in pre-school and there was weather moving in. Thankfully she took an earlier flight and arrived in time to remove any worry about us both being in the air at the same time. If she had taken her original flight she would have been late.

I had a meeting at my union office in the early afternoon. The Master Executive Council chairman confirmed me as permanent Communications Chairman (yay!). I left the meeting at 2:50 PM, rushed home and left for work at 3:30 PM. When I left my flights were all on time.

When I arrived the airport train system was having issues. I decided to walk instead of wait. Arrived to my crew room to find out my first turn had cancelled due to weather. I had a nearly 5 hour sit until my overnight flight.

Then my wife sent me a message that she was stuck in traffic. The weather was passing through. Her original flight was majorly delayed. Reports of downed trees and power outages.

My wife eventually made it home and the garage wouldn't open. I figured our power was out. Normally not an issue....but we both drive electric cars. No power means no charging. My car has a backup generator (BMW I3). Since I had a long sit I decided to drive home and she could use mine the next day.

When I got home the power was back on....but since I was home I decided to wait there vs at the airport.

Enjoyed an evening with my family until 7:50 PM. My 9 PM departure was still a go...ON TIME.

I arrived back at the airport at 8:15 PM....to see my flight delayed until 9:30 PM. The inbound aircraft diverted for weather.

The gate areas were jammed with passengers. I took a seat. Nine thirty became 10 PM. A couple sat next to me and was on the phone with family upset about the delay and stated "we're leaving at 10 PM so we should be there by 11:30 PM." I hated to be negative nancy but I told them I was flying the flight and we wouldn't "really leave" until 10:40 PM as the inbound was estimated to arrive at 10 PM. They were thankful, but annoyed with the news.

The inbound did arrive at 10:20 PM....with no where to park. Finally parked at 10:50 PM.

Gate agents were very busy. The inbound Captain who was also set to fly with me stated he needed food and left to go find some. I did my pre-flight and set up the aircraft. I met the Flight Attendant at the gate before I went down to the aircraft. I figured she'd be behind me to start boarding. I sat in the plane for about five minutes by myself. I finally went up to see what was going on. She had no ID badge (optional at my airline as it's airport issued) to open the boarding door. I let her in. Boarding started soon after.

Blocked out at 11:30 PM. I took the leg out as the Captain had been flying all afternoon.

Flew fast. Landed at 12:45 AM. Blocked in at 12:48 AM. Duty stopped at 1:03 AM. Set to arrive 10 hours later at 11:03 AM for a 11:30 AM departure. Short, but is much better than the old days (last year!) of 8 hours between leaving the airport and having to return.

Five legs today.

1 comment:

  1. Congrats on the appointment. Your excellent blog posts show that you'll be great at communications!

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