I hear this all of the time and I cannot help but laugh, this job is anything but glamorous. Take today for example, it is day one again for me and I begin my day at 6:00am. Not much sleep due to the late night thunder storms that rolled through. I rush to get out the door because I know that the morning traffic will be bad. The entire way to the airport it was pouring down rain and the traffic was stop and go.
Once at the airport, parking is always a challenge, you never know which lot is going to be open. After attempting to park in long term 1 and 2 I had to settle for the more expensive daily lot. I make it to the security check point only to be given grief by the TSA agent that said I cut in line. I avoided the winding borders and waited behind the only two people in this line, only to be scolded. Some of these guys are just on a power trip, they like being able to give the pilots grief and we have to just take it to a certain extent.
My first flight to work is full, so I run to my second choice, an American Eagle flight that is running late because the flight crew arrived late last night due to the weather. Great, now I call crew scheduling to tell them that I will not be able to make my sign in, but I should be able to make my departure time for my first leg, provided we do not run any later. Again, I catch grief for not catching an earlier flight. I have a long enough day already without getting up at 4:00am to catch the 7:00am departure. If I am lucky I will get into my overnight about 11:00pm. That is a long enough day already!
Tomorrow will begin early as well, an 8:00am departure. It is usually not too bad when I can at least sleep in a little bit on day 2 to recover from day 1, but that is not the case this week. Hopefully, I will at least have a good crew to fly with. This makes the week much more tolerable when you are flying with a crew that works well together and has a good attitude.
I have been working with many of my follow crew members to get them started in their own business. Many of us are not happy with our jobs, the pay is not what it should be and the hours are horrible. My web site www.healthandwealthforpilots.com is now live, check out the Nuriche tab. This is a new company that is really taking off, a friend and fellow Captain invited me to be a part of this company and I am so glad that he did. We are both interested in leaving this crazy airline business and with a company like Nuriche and the timing that we are getting involved it will be possible sooner than later. Take some time to check it out and email me or call with any questions that you may have.
To your health & wealth,
Mike Jones
