The whims of airline scheduling have conspired to strand me in a hotel room in Memphis for the holiday.
I'm not complaining, OK just a little bit, but this is the kind of thing we called "sport bitching" when I was in the Air Force. I think the Yiddish term would be "kvetching".
Since I don't normally sit around on Thanksgiving day and watch football, I'll take the opportunity to write about some the unique things about working in this business.
Your entire airline career is based on one thing - seniority. What equipment you fly, what cities you travel to, when you go on vacation is all based on that all important seniority number.
When I invent time travel, right after I kill Hitler, I'm going to get myself hired in 1985 instead of 2005.
Having been with the company for roughly 8 and a half years has me right around the 80% mark on the seniority list. It's like being on an escalator. As people ahead of me get off (retire) I move up and other people (new hires) get on behind me. The escalator can move quickly, it can just creep along (not good) or it can even reverse and go backwards (bad).
Now, there are actually two different kinds of seniority. My overall seniority with the company will determine what aircraft I can fly and whether I can be a Captain or a First Officer. While each airline has its own contract, generally bigger airplanes pay more than smaller airplanes. Captain obviously pays more than First Officer.
The other seniority, the one that effects my day to day life the most, is my seniority relative to all the other people in my "seat". Of all the 757 First Officers at our main base, roughly 40% are senior to me and the other 60% are junior to me.
Why does this matter? Because of how we bid our monthly schedules. Every month a list of trips for the following month is published. We all rank order the trips we want to fly based on which days we want to work and where we want to go. The most senior 757 F/O is going to get their first pick of trips. The next person will get their first pick of what's left and so on down the line. Obviously the bottom of the seniority list gets the dregs.
It can get more complicated than that, sometimes to the point of being Byzantine, but that's the simplified version.
One great thing about this job is that it gives you a lot of flexibility. Want good schedules and quality of life - stay in your "seat" longer and get some seniority. Want to chase the big bucks - upgrade as quickly as you can, but you're going to put up with some crappy schedules.
Having tried both, I've found that I prefer the quality of life. I can get better schedules and spend more time at home and don't really notice the pay difference.
To explain this next part I need to define a few terms specific to the industry.
Domicile - The pilot base that your trips begin and end at. May or may not be where you live.
Line - A month's of trips.
Reserve - A pilot that is on-call. Instead of being assigned actual trips on their monthly schedule they are assigned days to be on call.
Commuter - A pilot who doesn't actually live in their domicile. I'm one of these.
Our pilot domiciles are in Anchorage, Los Angeles, Memphis, Cologne and Hong Kong. I'm based in Memphis but I prefer to live in Ohio for various reasons, not least of which being that my wife's job is there. The company doesn't really care where I live just so long as I show up for my trips. As Woody Allen said, 80% of life is just showing up.
To get to Memphis I normally ride the jump-seat on one of our planes. It's the most direct and reliable way for me to get to work. I figure the freight's going to get there, and if I'm with it I will too.
My other option is riding the jump-seat on another airline. We scratch their back and they scratch ours. Comair used to be three non-stops a day between Columbus and Memphis but Comair is long gone along with the direct flights.
I'd have to two-hop through another city and I'm not brave enough to risk getting bumped off the flight. Paying customers obviously take priority over jump-seaters. Likewise companies take care of their own first. A Delta pilot can bump me off a Delta jump-seat and I can bump a Delta pilot off of ours. Fair's fair.
Of course I could buy an airline ticket but I hate to pay for the privilege of going to work so that would be an emergency measure. As is driving from Columbus to Memphis, which takes every bit of 9 hours.
Now if I lived in my domicile, being on reserve wouldn't be such a bad deal. I'd be getting paid to be on call for 12 hours a day roughly 20 days out of the month. If they don't have to call you in you get money for nothin'.
Reserve is anathema to a commuter, however. When I sat reserve I had to share a crash-pad in Memphis with sometimes as many as 5 other pilots. I'm getting a little old to live like a college student. This cost me both time and money. Time in that a day of reserve only counts as 2/3 of trip so I'd be working 20 days a month instead of 15. That doesn't sound like a lot but realize you're not sleeping in your own bed on those days.
Money because room in a crash-pad costs $200-$300 a month. Plus by the third day in the crash-pad I'd start losing my will to live. Especially if the one guy was there who did nothing but sit around with Fox News on all day long. Plus they would eat my food and leave the kitchen a mess. I cannot abide a mess. Did I mention that I hated the crash-pad?
So for me, I try to bid schedules that minimize the number of days I waste traveling back and forth to work. A week-on/week-off schedule for me is just about right. The holy grail of airline flying is getting a schedule that lays over in my home town. That's pretty rare but I can sometimes get a weekend layover within driving distance of home.
Sometimes despite my best efforts things just don't work out. Like today. My trip ended in Memphis last night around midnight. My next trip begins early tomorrow morning around 2:00 AM. This strands me in Memphis for roughly 26 hours.
Since we have very few domestic trips today (major holiday) I couldn't take the jump-seat home for 24 hours even if I wanted to. I'm certainly not going to attempt a two-hop (both ways) on Delta through Atlanta or Detroit.
Since I can normally get good schedules I don't keep a crash-pad anymore. It's only very rarely that a holiday or annual training throws a wrench into my schedule. For the economics to make sense, I'd have to spend 3-5 days per month in the crash-pad for it to be cheaper than just getting a hotel room.
Now I do normally keep a car in Memphis. It's a hold over from when I sat reserve but it gives me greater options on hotels and restaurants. Unfortunately I took my "airport car" back to Ohio last month to get some work done on it and I haven't had a chance to reposition it.
So to make a long story longer, that's how I came to be sitting in a mid-tier hotel in an obscure industrial park near the Memphis airport on Thanksgiving day. Some might say I "flunked bidding" for the month of November. I'd just say it's the cost of doing business.
Not a big deal. I cooked our turkey dinner on Sunday and had some friends and family over. I've learned over the years to reschedule holidays to fit my work schedule. My family is scattered across the country anyway so we don't have a tradition of big gatherings.
So I have much to be thankful for today. I have an interesting job that pays well and lets me have a fair bit of flexibility in my schedule. I have a union and a contract that gives me some degree of job protection. It isn't perfect but it's a whole lot better than most people have it today.
Hopefully I can find a Chinese place that delivers because the hotel restaurant was only open for breakfast. I know, I know - first world problems. Happy Thanksgiving.
4:40 PM PT: BBQ! They have BBQ in Memphis and they deliver! I'm saved!
Now best BBQ in Memphis is a subject that will start fistfights, but I'll say that Marlowe's was quite good.