I wanted to add that I appreciate the feedback and questions above. I'll get to those soon. I've been pretty busy on this trip so far. It's definitely thrown some curves into the mix.
The plane was a little bit late getting in for us to leave on time. We did our best to get all of our stuff done, and then we sat there. See, sometimes you sit on a plane and you wonder why you aren't going anywhere. Sometimes we wonder the same thing. We sit there waiting for the next step of the process so we can get paid and get on with the day. In this case we were waiting for 30 bags to get on the plane. See? Just one part of the dance and things get behind the ball. That cost us over 20 minutes off the gate. We had been planned to get into San Francisco 15 min early, but now we were looking at a late arrival. Once we got headed in the right direction we made some adjustments to try and make up some of this time we had lost. Too bad on this day that despite our efforts we just couldn't make up much of the time. ATC gave us a reroute that they said was for traffic, but I wonder sometimes. Not that I'd like to find out the hard way that I was wrong or anything.
Our arrival into SFO is almost always over Yosemite Park and Half Dome. Today I finally remembered to get a shot of it, and when it wasn't covered in clouds either!
Normally a trans-con would be all I would do for the day, but not on this wonderful day. We had about an hour to kill before we needed to be back at the plane for 1 more leg. This one down to LAX. This plane was late coming in as well, and that put us behind once again. The good thing about SFO-LAX is it's usually planned for more block time than actual flight time and you can get in really early. Today was not one of those days. We made things happen to get going and headed out. Due to gusty winds the airport was only able to make use of 2 runways instead of the customary 4. That usually means that departures will be delayed somewhat, but we were flying later in the day, in between pushes (scheduled banks of flights that go out right around the same time.) That didn't stop ATC from holding us on the ground though. We sat, waiting for our wheels up time for LA, due to arrival rates, and flow into LA. Like I've expressed before, it's always better now to have a plane depart a little later, holding them on the ground than it is to have them hold in the air while they burn fuel. We ended up in LA almost an hour late.
By this point I had been in uniform for about 18 hours from when I put it on in the morning at home. I really like being able to commute in on the day I start, but damn, if it doesn't create these unbelievably long days. Needless to say I slept like a champ. I was productive this morning too. I finished the 4 training modules that I had to finish and am now trained until the end of the year.
Today I covered ETOPS, which stands for Extended Overwater Operations. Basically, we have a different set of rules for flights that cannot remain within a set distance from the nearest suitable alternate at any point along the route. Anything overseas is ETOPS. There are only a few routes on the 737 that are, Bermuda being one of them. It's a complicated set up that focuses on fuel, emergencies and worst case scenarios and what is required before you can even push back. The next module was an exam for Pacific Operations. I have to have this because of our routes to Hawaii, even though EWR doesn't operate any of those flights. From there it was onto compliance training where everyone learns how to love one another and what to do if you don't like others loving you quite so much. The last module was an incident review of the Asiana crash in SFO. The technical details of the event were reviewed and discussed.
I walked out to the pier and had a great breakfast at this little joint. Have I mentioned that I love SoCal? Love it. It's still in my blood from being born in this area. Not sure I could do it full time, but I wouldn't mind trying if I could afford it.
We left for the airport, as our flight was just before noon, heading out to Chicago. I had seen on the news about Washington Center going down and all the planes getting routed around the airspace. Our plane was already in LA, so we didn't need to worry about that. Once we got on the plane though we had some other things to deal with. The plane had come in with an open write-up. Meaning that the last crew had a problem and it had to be dealt with before we could do anything.
This issue, I knew from the beginning, had some potential to be a long delay. It's just one of those things that could be any of a number of different problems and it involved a long process to try and ferret out the issue.
We were immediately delayed 3 hours.
Someone might ask, "what do you do when you are delayed like that?"
Well, pretty much the same as a passenger, except that I don't care as much what time I get somewhere unless it's the last day of the trip. Don't screw with go home day. lol.
Honestly though, we sit in first class, talk, eat, read, sleep and wait for some kind of news. Today I got off and wandered around the terminal just to move some. I think some people think that we possess much more knowledge than we actually do. We just don't know how long it'll be. We don't know if it's going to cancel. We don't know if it's going to fixed quickly. We just try and pass information along to the gate agent, the same way that she passes it on to you. Remember, their primary goal is to empty the gate and move on to the next flight. They want to board the plane and get you out of their hair. Even if it means you sitting on a plane for hours waiting. We don't want that. For starters, the flight attendants aren't getting paid for that time either. They don't start until that door closes. So that whole time at the gate waiting? Yeah, just doing their job, but not getting paid for it. It's one sure fire way to have a crabby, tired cabin crew.
Three hours turned into four.
My day had me with a short layover and a plane change in Chicago and then a flight down to Phoenix. It would have been a very long day like the day before. Eventually, they found a different plane that was just coming out of maintenance and they towed it over and switched our gate to the new plane.
Every time things like that happen the dispatcher has to create a new release for the flight with up to date weather, route and fuel information. Then it's our responsibility to look over all that data and approve it. All this time we aren't on the clock either. We knew by now that we weren't going to be able to make our flight to Phoenix. That flight would be re-crewed with someone else. Now we were in limbo for what might happen next. It was nice to finally get going though. When we got going, I had already been in uniform for another 5 hours while we waited out this delay.
Once we had the new plane we worked quickly to get ready and pushed off the gate. On our call to ground they gave us some instructions and then told us to call for a new route and clearance. So if you are taxiing out to the runway, and you find yourself sitting for 10-15 minutes without moving, there's a good chance that the plane got a new route from ATC.
When we get a new route we have to make sure that the computer is loaded correctly. We both verify that the routing is correct (very important) and that it's loaded correctly, that we have enough fuel, and whether or not we can go without needing to have the dispatcher involved. Once we are both ok with everything, and confident that we are set up right we made our way to the runway and left for Chicago.
We really had no choice but to try and make up what time we could, but it was hard with another reroute along the way and then the weather. It took all summer, but I finally had a day where I had to play with the radar, and we simply picked and wound our way around one storm, then another. ATC gives you the authorization to deviate and you are responsible to get yourself where you want to be. The hard part on days like today is trying to pick that best path through everything.
Sometimes the options are obvious, but today I really had to examine the storms, play with the radar and not only pick the safest route, but also the most comfortable for the passengers. I'd say that we were dodging massive storms for most of 90 minutes before we broke out into the clear. The rest of the flight was straightforward.
Back on the ground in Chicago and I found out that my schedule had been altered. Instead of heading to Phoenix, I was to stay in Chicago, where I'm at tonight. Tomorrow is something very different from my scheduled trip, but the upside is that instead of going home on Monday, there's a chance that I might get to go home a day early, tomorrow. Even better news? I still get paid for my original schedule. Or to be more correct. I get paid the greater of scheduled or actual. Since I'm doing something completely different. It's not close to what my original scheduled is, so the former is paid out. If they had added more flying I would have gotten increased to the new amount.
In other news, the party that I had been working on for the HOA was today as well. My family worked very hard to cover for me and aside from an incident where the grocery store didn't have our food order ready, and simply had lost the catering order, even though the party started in 20 minutes. Ugh. So much stress, but they did awesome. Everything else went very well, and I was very proud of their efforts. I'd say that the whole thing was very successful, and planned out perfectly, from space usage, to how many people we might expect. We must have had close to 80 people, if not more when you consider little kids. A great effort and bounce back for having gone years without anything and being told that nobody participates. I hope next year I do get more volunteers though.
This is my sheep boy. His favorite toy when he was little was a little sheep. Now he's a big 8th grader, but he'll always be my little sheep boy.