Geek in the Cockpit

Scheduling has been interesting this week.

Monday – 4 legs with a 3 hour sit in between

Tuesday – off

Wednesday – Morning airport reserve

Thursday- Late morning reserve at home. They didn’t realize they had no one to cover afternoon airport reserve until it was 2PM…the time the shift starts. They called me at 2PM to sign in at 4PM. Released at 10PM

Friday – Once again no one assigned afternoon airport reserve. They didn’t realize it until 3:30PM when they needed a reserve quick. They scrambled and called me at 3:50PM to come sit ready at 5:50PM.

That’s where this blog starts….5:50PM. I arrived and attempted to sign in for airport reserve. The computer rejected my sign in stating I wasn’t assigned airport reserve. Whatever. I was there. I went and sat down with a buddy of mine in the crew room. I did notice a 6:30PM overnight that was open (due to the First Officer who is based elsewhere, being reassigned during the 3:30PM scramble!) I know the Captain…didn’t feel like screwing him over so I stepped up to the plate. I called scheduling and advised that I wasn’t able to sign in and that I saw a 6:30PM flight open. “Oh yeah, First Officer Smith, yeah okay I’m going to assign that too you then you have one leg out in the morning and a deadhead back.”

I was okay with it, except they had a 20 minute connect time scheduled for the deadhead. Impossible as my flight arrived at 7:50 AM. The deadhead left at 8:10AM. There is 15 minutes of duty scheduled at the termination of each flight for debrief leaving 5 minutes for the flight. She fixed it. I did state, “Good thing I called or the flight would have likely left late.” No response. Whatever.

The Captain and I flew together about two years ago. I didn’t remember it till I brought up my previous profession in the IT field. A light bulb went off in his head and he recalled how I helped him with his computer problem. Oh yeah.

Flight was fine. My leg. I was being super lazy and didn’t feel like putting in a fix 30 miles out at 10,000 feet (to help with Vertical Nav/fuel savings). I just winged it from FL 360 down to the 2500 altitude at the FAF. Same with the approach. Clear night. All worked out. Even landed on the 1000 footers for the first time in a while. Overnight short. Just 9 hours.

Many hotels have these waffle makers. I am a pro at them. If I get furloughed I am going straight to Waffle House!

The other base gives me Tourette’s syndrome. I don’t like it. The ground controller asked where we were parking. He gave simple instructions, “Ok taxi Hotel to Mike 2 then Lima to the gate.” But then he continued, “If the gate is occupied, Hotel to India, India to Foxtrot 2, Bravo, Charlie then Double back on Lima and hold short of Mike 9″. I think. Honestly I have no clue what he said….he spoke way too fast. The Captain got it all. Thankfully the gate was open.

The Captain had a 2 hour sit and offered to do my post flight. Nice. Off I went to my deadhead.

I was assigned a middle seat in the back…better than the jump seat. Prior to leaving my schedule had me terminating in base after the deadhad. I texted my wife my flight number and my ETA as she dropped me off yesterday, I would need a ride home.

Yadda, yadda, yadda I land in base. I called scheduling to get released. Nope. Assigned another overnight leaving in 45 minutes….from the other side of the airport. As the scheduler rattled off my assignment all I could hear was, “No you can’t go home, now back to your hole flyboy!” Over dramatic yes. But it’s the weekend and it would be nice too see my wife.

My wife was already on the way to pick me up….had to tell her to turn around.

Being in the back of the plane, it took a while to get off. I made it to my gate with 25 minutes to spare. Flight attendants on board, no Captain.

After greeting the flight attendants I fired up the APU. For whatever reason the ground crew didn’t hook up power. Not my gas. Not my problem.

The Captain arrived with 10 minutes to spare. He was called from home and was actually early as they called him late. We blocked out 1 minute late. I was hungry.

The winds were gusting from between 100-120 degrees to the left of the centerline. Captain managed a nice gusty, slight tailwind,  light weight landing.

Once at the gate, he was deadheading back. I was staying the night along with the Flight Attendants.

The airline is short on Captains. He is heading back for a 4 hour sit for an overnight. Another Captain would be deadheading up to fly out with me in the morning. What a mess.

I did go to lunch with the Flight Attendants to an awesome seafood cafe for awesome fried catfish. Almost made this craziness worth it.

Leaving tomorrow morning on a 4:45AM van for a 5:40AM departure.

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For February I had a regular reserve line, meaning I was assigned to available all but 11 days of the month. On these days I could be assigned to sit at home “on call”, at the airport “on call” or go flying. No idea which until the last minute. I am used to it.

A buddy of mine on my plane, but much more senior, forgot to bid for February. He also got regular reserve. In his 5 years here….he has never been on reserve.

When he was hired he got a line almost right away. He was lucky with his timing.

More than once this month he has asked me, “Man how do you do it?”…meaning putting up with reserve. I told him that I have been abused so much that I am somewhat used to it. It was a rude awakening too him. I am sure he will never forget to bid again.

On reserve it’s hard to plan anything on a day I have to be available. If my wife needs me to go with her to the doctor and I am on reserve…well I do the best I can.

For example the next time she goes in for an Ultrasound is March 2nd. In order to make sure I had the day off I moved my reserve days around this month to work the 6 days prior to March 2nd giving me a 7 day conflict. My schedule for March originally had me working that day, now I have it off WITH pay.  I have 12 days off in March instead of 11. Of course I have to pay the piper by working 6 days of reserve in a row.

It will get worse when we have a kid. If the kiddo has a play on a certain day I have to hope to swap days, get the day off with pay (burning a vacation day), get the day off without pay or hope to be done in time.

My buddy has had a rough month even for reserve standards. It almost seems like scheduling is working him harder because they never got to screw with him in he past. Payback of sorts.

Because he was never on reserve, he had a lot of questions about what scheduling can do. Sure it’s in the contract, but reading through the contract can be a little confusing….and there is a lot of grey. I don’t mind helping out and gave him pointers. He has since bid and was awarded a hard line for March.

If I were a line holder it would be much easier to get days off and plan a life.

Next month I have afternoon airport standby again. I prefer this as I know on the first day I am off until at least 2PM. If it were a reserve day I would have no idea what I was doing. Knowing I am off till 2PM allows me to go to the Doctor, get my car fixed…whatever.

Come July 2nd I will have 10 First Officer below me. Life will get better. Though I will still likely be on reserve….I should be on the top of the reserve list (where I can control my life a little more) versus the bottom where I am now.

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Wife and I grabbed seats in cattle class last night to visit family. Thankfully we got exit row seats for the flight.

About 2 hours in, I was resting with my Bose QC15s pumping in a Smart DJ playlist (I love my Zune HD!) into my ears when I overheard, “If there is a M.D or D.O on board please ring your flight attendant call button or come to row 22.”

I opened my eyes to see two flight attendants briskly walking down the aisle carrying the emergency medical kit and oxygen bottle. Something had happened. A moment later the third flight attendant walked by with the defibrillator. Medical emergency.

I had changed out of my uniform into my “civies” prior to boarding the flight.

As two flight attendants and a Dr worked in the back of the plane, I noticed the front flight attendant had his hands full with First Class. As he walked to the back of the plane I took out my ID and let him know that if he needed any help I was glad to assist (I’m listed as a pilot/crew on the passenger manifest so he knew who I was). Being squeamish I can’t help with the medical emergency, but I can help pick up trash and hand out drinks at the very least. I can also help with “crowd” control as passengers were trying to use the rear lavatory even though it was clear the area was packed. He said he was going to ask if I could help and appreciated my offer. Things were fine at the time, but he would let me know if he needed help.

I laid back and hoped for the best. There was still 90 minutes of flight left. If the seat belt sign came on or we started descending soon I knew it was because of the medical emergency.

Thankfully everything worked out fine. About 30 minutes prior to landing the lead flight attendant came back to my seat and dropped off half a dozen fresh baked cookies. He appreciated my offer to step up and help.

Once we landed medical personnel came on board and rolled the passenger off. They ended up signing a waiver to not be transported after all.

Even though it wasn’t my airline (it was a mainline flight) I’m always here to help another crew if needed.

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