life on a ferry

I don't have a picture about this particular post, so I'll put in something arbitrary because if you're like me, you only like to read things with pictures. This is me and my favorite girls at our graduation...aren't we cute? Ok, we are trying to be cute, but at that point, we were ready to go home and get some sleep!

Last night I took the last flight to Baltimore to be ready in the morning if the airline needed me. I am on reserve for the next 6 days and hang out at my crashpad until scheduling calls and assigns me a trip. My flight was delayed an hour last night which put me in BWI around 11pm. Then, there were so many flight attendants (FAs) that needed a ride home, it took an hour to get a cab ride. By the time I was in bed asleep, the clock struck 1am.

The clock struck 3am. My phone rings. It's scheduling telling me to checkin at the airport no later than 5am for a Buffalo turn. This means I work a flight to BUF and then the work the flight back to BWI and I'm finished. Yeah, right. If you are one of those weather channel addicts, you know that BUF had some major weather issues...mainly SNOW! When I arrive at my gate, I notice a bunch of sleepy people with pillows and blankets. Then I take a closer gander and notice that there are baskets of peanuts and pretzels and oodles of cans of soda. These poor people got stuck in BWI the night before and I was assigned to bring them home the next morning at 6am...supposedly. I call scheduling to tell them that only 2 of the 3 FAs had shown up to work the flight. They said all flights to BUF had been cancelled until noon and I was to go back up in the lounge and wait for another assignment.

Thirty minutes later, the phone rings. I'm given an assignment to BGR. BGR??? What the heck is BGR? I don't remember memorizing that code for any of my exams in training! Someone tells me it's a charter flight (meaning someone paid big bucks to have a SW plane all to themselves) to a city that SW doesn't usually service. At this point, I become excited because charter flights are usually given to the senior FAs of at least 10 years or more.

In order to pick up the special client, which is the Villanoma football team, we have to ferry a flight to PHL to pick them up. Ferry means just the crew consisting of 2 pilots, 3 FAs and 1 ops agent is on the flight, no one else. This means fun times!!! After 911, no FAs are allowed up in the flight deck except to give the pilots food or stay up there while one takes a potty break. Other than that, we stay with the passengers. Since there were no passengers, we got to keep the flight deck door open and I got to sit in the flight deck for the entire flight...including take off and landing. How fun!

I find out that BGR is Bangor, Maine. The trees are at their colorful prime this time of year and it was gorgeous.

We had 94 passengers consisting of the team itself, a chaplain and alumni. There were some girls on the flight, but since their size didn't match up with that of a stereotypical cheerleader, their jobs remain a mystery.

Once we dropped the team off, we got to ferry the plane back to BWI. I got paid for 4.7 hours with only working 1 hour of the trip. Plus, the best part...I found out I get paid double time for charter flights! Woohoo!!!!

Now I'm off to bed...hopefully I won't get another 3am call...I do like my sleep...didn't I write that earlier?