I'm back!

Wow, three years since the last post. The real irony is that I am in almost the identical situation - all laid up with no place to go. Much has happened in the last three years: furloughed, new baby, finish college, recalled, switch airlines....in fact, it seems that three years shouldn't have been enough time for all that to happen. Well, I'm back now, and will try this whole blogging thing again. I'll try to get caught up on the last three years while weaving tales of current events...well, after this thumb is all healed up, but that will be a topic for another story..

Grounded Pt. II (postponed indefinitely :)

This installment of my two part series was supposed to be the grand finale...the big tuna (not Jim Halpert, either). In a strange twist of fate, the story will be postponed until Fall. Let me explain....

We operate[d] 55 aircraft. Many of these are owned outright, some of them are leased. Eleven aircraft have their leases expire this year. Because of the current economic climate (are you sick of hearing that yet?) the company was not able to renegotiate the first four leases to come due, so the aircraft are being returned to the lessor. Simple math dictates that less aircraft equals less pilots, so the company was all set to trim off the bottom twenty pilots - including yours truly - come May 1st. Of course I was extremely disappointed to receive this news at the end of May, but confident that it was a sign that I should be doing something else and prepared to move forward. Imagine my surprise when, upon landing in Philadelphia after a flight from Syracuse, I had a voicemail from my chief pilot informing me that the furloughs had been cancelled and that they were maintaining the current staffing levels through the summer. This industry never ceases to amaze me. It is the most reactionary group of entities that I have ever seen. Oh well, I guess it means I can keep flying, so great right???

Oh yes, I finally received the medical certificate that I waited oh-so-patiently for, bless the FAA's heart. Crew Scheduling immediately put me to work, and I just wrapped up a delay-ridden three day trip in and out of the City of Brotherly Love. The first two days were routine, but the last leg of the last day wrapped up in typical fashion. We were working a flight back to the Big Apple. The flight was scheduled to go out on tiime, but thanks to some baggage mis-handling we pushed back 25 minutes late. The company flight that left for the same destination right before us was holding in the air, so the tower wouldn't release us for takeoff until they were out of the hold. As luck would have it, as soon as that aircraft was out of the hold, our destination called for a ground stop for all aircraft that hadn't left yet. Of course, we didn't have enough fuel to sit out on the taxiway, so we had to go back for fuel. By this time it was an hour after we pushed back. Once at the gate, the passengers apparently thought this meant that they could get off and go inside and find another way to wherever they were going, which caused mass confusion and turned a 10 minute fuel stop into a 45 minute loading nightmare. We pushed back after another hour, took off right away, and were immediately given holding once we reached our cruise altitude. We held for a full 45 minutes, and were 5 minutes away from "bingo fuel" - that is, the amount of fuel remaining before we would have to go get fuel. We were preparing to deal with anarchy in the back when Gotham finally accepted our arrival and I smacked one on the runway to conclude our trip.

As I write this, I'm waiting for my flight home, which is delayed a full two hours due to fallout from yesterday's poor weather that paralyzed the East Coast.

Living the Dream....

Grounded

Welcome to a miniseries entitled "Grounded". This is the first installment in a two part series.

As pilots, we must maintain a certain level of health and fitness. I use these terms somewhat loosely, because really all we do is sit still, and many captains I have flown with haven't put the running shoes on in quite some time. Really, no one wants us dropping dead while on final approach in a snowstorm. We certify our fitness through the FAA Medical; we take a physical assessment each year with a designated Aeromedical Examiner (AME). It was my turn to renew mine a couple of weeks ago. Since I turned 35 last year, I would be required to take an ECG - no big deal, and I was more worked up about the eye test for no reason other than it is something to get worked up about. When it was time for the ECG, the nurse fumbled through hooking me up, then fumbled through running the test (I guess they don't do them that often). After the machine spit out the results, she took them to the doctor, them came back and ran it again (without adjusting anything, mind you). She took the new results to the doctor, and then said he'd be in to talk to me. Now I was starting to get worked up about the ECG. When the doctor came in, he said the test indicated a "possible circulation problem around the bottom of [my] heart". Okay, that got my attention. Needless to say, I didn't get my medical.

I got right on the phone and called the chief pilot's office and let them know that I was grounded because, after all, I was on reserve that day. My next call was to the union. Now, I haven't really formed my opinion on unions yet, and I can't say that I'm for or against them as I've never been affiliated with one in 10 years of working. Today, I was definitely for them. The union rep put me in touch with the aeromedical office, and they gave me the "gameplan" for what I'd have to do to get my medical, including a visit to the cardiologist for additional testing. Now it was time for some Googling. At the top of the ECG printout was my diagnosis, which was a possible 1st degree AV block. Come to find out, this is quite normal and common in athletes and people of above average health (let's face it, I'm not going to the Olympics any time soon, but I eat right and am in the gym 5-6 days per week). Now I'm shifting from shock and worry to pure anger. This is confirmed by the ALPA aeromedical doctor, who informed me that it is normal, and the AME should have simply held my medical for further testing if he wasn't comfortable just giving it to me.

Well, to wrap up, further testing at the cardiologist turned up a very healthy heart. I maxed out the stress test at 99% of my maximum heart rate, and additional resting ECGs only turned up an early repolarization which, you guessed it, is quite common in young healthy people.

So, now I wait....and wait....and wait.....and wait...for the FAA - a government agency - to give me back what was so hastily taken from me.

The moral of the story is this: there is a wealth of information out there at your fingertips, and medicine is becoming more and more of a team effort. The doctor is the educated authority, but only one of you knows what is going on with your body. If in doubt, question authority!

IM SAFE

There is an old mnemonic used in general aviation to take a "personal assessment" of oneself prior to going flying. I used to preach it to my students because many, many pilots have bought the farm because their minds were not on the task at hand. I think it's easier to let these guidelines fall by the wayside in the airline world, in part because there is an additional pilot to pick up any slack, and in part because "the show must go on". Today, however, I'm in a hotel in Syracuse reviewing this very important rule of thumb, which goes:

I - Illness (am I sick?)
M - Medication (am I taking any medications?)
S - Stress (am I under any job/life/family stress?)
A - Alcohol (have I been drinking - this should be a no brainer)
F - Fatigue (am I tired?)
E - Emotion (am I experiencing any extreme emotions?)

I can say that today, I am in violation of at least four of these (no, I haven't had anything to drink). Two weeks ago, my daughter was so kind as to bring home the flu from school. After 36 hours of pure hell, and 4 more days of sickness, I got kind of better, took the trip I'm currently on, and got hit again with a vengeance over the last two days. By the time last night rolled around I was beaten down, and of course I had the last leg into Syracuse. I actually managed a very nice landing, probably because I was laser-focused on that runway and the hot shower I knew was a 5 minute crew van trip away. Either my timing was off or everything was just moving in slow motion for me. Once the gear and flaps were down, I felt like we crept along for a good 10 minutes before touching down, and we were the only plane around. A smooth approach and landing nonetheless.

The coup de grace: I just had to walk a mile to the closest drug store to get a variety of medications recommended by my doctor (nothing unapproved, but still). After making several "stops" during my walk, I knew I had failed the IM SAFE checklist miserably, and it was time to call crew scheduling. I should have known last night: I was too sick to eat my crew meal..........that was a joke (I'll save crew meals for another post).

Living the dream...

Commuting on Reserve

Three words that strike fear into the hearts of airline pilots around the world. But what exactly does that mean? There is probably a Wikipedia entry on it, and certainly a Google search will return something. But a recent post by the author at fl250.blogspot.com about the industry/economy, together with the questions I receive about my schedule, prompted me to write about that very thing.

The airline industry is based on seniority. The longer you've been around, the more "opportunity" you have with respect to everything from schedule to pay to what type of aircraft you fly, for those that operate multiple types. My airline only operates one type so that leaves us with schedule and pay, of which I'll touch on the former. When you first start out at an airline you are on "reserve" status. The way I explain this to people when asked is that I am "on call". This usually resonates with people because they know that when a doctor is on call they get paged when needed, which is exactly what happens to me. During the recent hiring boom that is now gone, a new pilot could expect to "sit" on reserve for a very short period of time, if at all. I've been on reserve for seven months, which was unheard of as recently as late 2007 at most regional airlines. Unfortunately there is no end in sight in the current climate, but I try not to be negative.

So what does it actually look like? Well, if a reserve pilot is being called then that means a pilot that was previously assigned to a trip could not fly it for some reason - sickness, family, duty limits, etc. As you would expect, things like this can happen at the last minute, in which case you need to be at the airport in relatively short order. Which of course means that you need to be close by. Close enough, at my airline, that you can be signed in within 75 minutes (120 minutes in Gotham) of receiving the phone call. Which brings us to those three words. Since I am based in Gotham, I cannot possibly get there from my homeland in 2 hours, so I need to already be there. And since on call times typically start at 5:00 am, you guessed it again, I need to be there the night before. And since you are on call for five consecutive days....well, I'm sure you can see where this is going and it is not making the wife very happy. I have only been called on the same day once, and that time I had 3 hours notice so it gave me plenty of time. Every other time I received a call the day before, and it was always for a trip that was unassigned, or had not been given to a first officer during our monthly bidding process.

As I've mentioned before, my airline has a nice provision in the pilot contract that lets us perform our reserve duties at a base of our choosing, if allowed to do so by Mother (crew scheduling). Up until recently, Mother has been nice to me and allowed me to work out of the base closest to home, but times are tough. This base is small and does not see much flying, and Gotham is a big city, and sees much flying. The result is that I have been spending much time in my sister-in-law's basement just across the border from downtown Gotham, about an hour's drive from the airport (it's only 33.6 miles, I still don't get it).

The winter months are usually slow, and the current economy is making things slower. There is some concern on the grapevine of the small close-to-home base closing its doors. And without much attrition or growth in the company, the possibility of only being used in a reserve capacity for a long, long time is becoming a reality. Because things are so slow, I haven't been flying very much at all. In fact, sometimes I can't differentiate days off from days supposedly working. This is marginally acceptable when I am home, but when in the sister-in-law's basement, is not nearly as much fun. Of course the goal, regardless of base, is to be in the air looking down, not the other way around.

Oh well, I just requested an unassigned trip on my day off Thursday (is it a day off?). I look forward to the relaxing drive through the mountains to the small close-to-home base...for now.

Living the dream.

To: John From: Crew Scheduling

Merry Christmas!

I received a present from crew scheduling this year - a 7 AM show time on Christmas Day for a three day trip, meaning that I'd need to leave by 5:30 to get to the airport on time. And I didn't even get them anything.

Thus I've been indoctrinated into the elite group of "Those Who Work on Christmas Day", and I'd be performing my first "Christmas Lift" (For more tales of the holiday lift visit flightlevel390.blogspot.com).

I am based at our Gotham hub, but since we live in the SE United States, I always request to fly out of the base closest to our home. With the holidays upon us, and an increase in flying in the Northeast, this request has been denied more and more lately. My lovely wife is from the extended Gotham suburbs, so we planned to spend Christmas with her family. On Christmas eve we spent the day with all of the kids in the City (our daughter snookered an American Girl out of us), and the evening with the entire family, so I don't feel like I missed out too terribly much - although one day I hope to fly on Christmas Eve and make the "Santa Sighting" announcement. Next year perhaps.

The City that Never Sleeps is quiet at 5 AM on Christmas day, and the drive to the airport was the most pleasant I've had (well, at least the drive through Manhattan, the drive through the Appalachians to the airport in Virginia is always pleasant). I was originally assigned to this trip because another pilot dropped it, so I would only be with the crew for the first three days at which the original pilot would rejoin the crew. Nonetheless, I've blogged before that the upside of early report times, is going home early on the last day. This trip was no exception: one leg from BWI-LGA at 7 AM, and then homeward bound. Until then, however, two long duty days, with only four legs each day. This is made possible through the use of multi-hour blocks of airport appreciation time - that is, time spent in an airport waiting for your next flight. Sure would be easier if all airports had free wi-fi. I certainly don't want to challenge an entities attempts to generate revenue in these economic times, but to that point, are people actually spending $7.95 to use the internet for an hour? But I digress....

So yes, in two days a total of 8 hours and 20 minutes spent sitting in airports waiting for flights. That is a fine Christmas present indeed. I'm home now and all that is behind me. But wait, it looks like Crew Scheduling might have another present for me for New Year's....I really need to get them something....