Long hours

Four of our -900's on the ramp in CLT

After two long days of work, I couldn't help but think what other jobs require such long hours, or flexibility in scheduling. On Sunday I showed up at the plane at 7:15am, after waking up at 5:45am to get ready and drive to the airport. One Atlanta roundtrip, one Birmingham, AL roundtrip, a 3 hour break at the airport, and one final leg to the overnight in Greensboro, NC. We pulled into the gate at 8:50pm, put the plane to sleep, and finally got to the hotel around 9:30-9:45. A 'duty day' (show time to release time) of 13 hours and 50 minutes. Federal aviation regulations limit a crew to a 16 hour duty day - twice what a 'normal' person would work in a day. Perhaps doctors, or other professionals in the medical field work comparable hours? Or maybe high level management and CEO's of major corporations?

It was a long day, and we had a show time of 6:25am the next morning. In bed around 10-11pm, and alarm set for 5:00am to get ready, grab a quick breakfast, take the 15 min shuttle to the airport, pass through security (why do we have to go through security again?) and preflight the plane for it's load of passengers anxiously waiting in the boarding area. A decent amount of sleep, but I was looking forward to a short 3-leg day, and being done by noon. A nap was definitely scheduled for the afternoon.

But that plan was quickly changed when the Captain pointed out to me on the paperwork "FO Jackman, you are JRA'd (junior assigned) to DH (deadhead) CLT-TLH (Tallahassee) at 2:50pm on flt 2607, and fly 2698 TLH-CLT at 5:05pm." Great. I was now scheduled to sit around from noon till almost 3:00, deadhead to Tallahassee and bring the plane back. Instead of getting off at noon, I was now scheduled to get off at 6:30pm. Well, the deadhead was delayed, and we landed in TLH almost an hour late. Twenty minute turn, trying to make up time back to CLT. But of course with a high level of traffic headed for CLT, and thunderstorms in the vicinity, ATC slows us down and starts turning us away from CLT to add spacing between us and the aircraft in front. Pulled into the gate at 7:00pm, and I was onboard the employee shuttle by 7:30pm.

What other job requires you to stay 7.5 hours after you were originally scheduled to get off? That's practically a 'normal' shift for a 'normal' job added to my day. The sacrifices we make to fly chunks of metal around the sky...

AirTran's tribute to Indy racer Danica Patrick, AirTranica