Whatever that means.

I woke up this morning with my usual 4:06am telephone call from crew tracking, telling me to head to the airport for ready reserve. They asked me when I could get to the airport. I told him an hour and a half, the maximum allowable. Presumably, if I’d stated less time than I would be released half an hour earlier. Only, they apparently haven’t been doing that right, besides I planned to dawdle as long as possible on my way to the airport.

I got there right about 5:36. I might have been early if I hadn’t waited 15 minutes for the stupid train to show up. Fortunately, Chicago is much warmer than I left it. The roads and sidewalks are snow-free, which means I get to roll my bag rather than plow snow with it. It’s also much warmer. I didn’t even need gloves this morning.

I napped fitfully on a crew room recliner this morning, listening to She & Him. I really like She & Him. Speaking of She & Him, or at least She, The Go Getter is an excellent movie. Watch it.

I’m not sure how much of the week before last I mentioned. Probably not much. The highlight was probably the flight from Allentown, PA (I kept humming Billy Joel to myself). We arrived something like 6 hours late, which was hardly a surprise given the weather. There were about 20 passengers trying to get out that night, and we were glad to take them. We called for a clearance and they told us that we had a wheels up time in 20 minutes. Given that we still didn’t have a dispatch release (the “paperwork” when a pilot tells you that, “we’re waiting on paperwork.”) or fuel, we told them we wouldn’t be able to make it. They told us it would probably be all right if we weren’t more than 10 minutes later than that. It took another 45 minutes. I have no idea why, other than gross incompetence on the part of the ground crew. I don’t remember whether fuel or the dispatch release was the final hang up, but it took forever.

So we were hardly surprised when we taxied out to discover that there was a ground stop into Chicago, which means we were unable to leave. I did some math and determined that if we didn’t take off in the next 20 minutes we would not be legal take off, because the landing time would then be more than 16 hours after I went on duty. We relayed this to the ground controller, who said he’d try to help out. He made several telephone calls, but said there was no way he could release us. So we had to tell the folks who’d been waiting 6 hours for their flight that they were not, in fact, getting to go to Chicago that night after all.

Then came the hard decision. The company wanted us to deliver the plane back to Chicago, a reposition flight with no people on it. While it wasn’t legal for me to fly under 14 CFR Part 121 (which covers scheduled air carrier operations), it was still legal to fly under Part 91. This meant it was just a couple of guys flying an airplane, which meant that as long as I felt safe to fly, it was legal for me to do so. I could have told the company that I did not feel safe operating the flight, and no one would have questioned the decision–after all, if it’s not legal for me to fly with passengers, why should I have to fly my self?

At the time, I felt fine. It was late at night, but I’d slept well the night before. The Captain really wanted to get back to Chicago as did the flight attendant, so I told them that I’d go as long as I felt fine.

It then took another hour before we could go anywhere. We got new weather, which showed that we needed more fuel. It started sleeting in Allentown, which meant we’d need to be de-iced before we could take off. We were astounded. It wasn’t like there were any other planes for the crew to work. Two or three folks on the ground single-handedly kept 20 folks from getting to where they were going.

When we got to Chicago, the astonishing part is that despite the fact that it was after 1:00am, they were still planning to send the plane back out to Appleton. The airport was a zoo. People were camped out everywhere, dozing in uncomfortable chairs or stretched out on the floor. While as a general rule, you should never fly to, from or through New York, Chicago is usually better. But, I’ll update my rule: in addition to never flying to, from or through EWR, JFK or LGA, never fly to/from ORD when there might be snow. Avoiding ATL when there’s a cloud or two in the sky isn’t a bad idea, either, though with ATL, you’ll likely just be late, though you’ll get where you were going eventually. In retrospect, as an airline pilot, I think I’ll just recommend that you don’t fly, ever. Drive a car, ride a train, paddle a boat.

If you do fly, and the weather sucks, don’t be surprised when you’re late/delayed/canceled. Amusingly, though, it’s not that we can’t fly in the weather. We can fly in most anything these days. We just can’t fly efficiently. At places like ORD and ATL, a plane needs to land and takeoff every 30 seconds. We need more spacing than that when we can’t see each other, and there’s just too many planes and not enough time to make that happen.

I’m reading Don DeLillo’s White Noise. It strikes me as Camus’ Plague updated for the 20th century.

My schedule on Facebook is updated with my new line.

Photos from Red Feather Lakes are up on the gallery.

As a nice change, they sent me to DSM and then I deadheaded back. That beats sitting around ready reserve all day, anyway.

I’m released at 3:30pm, then back on duty at 4am tomorrow. I’ve got another DSM round trip scheduled for Tuesday afternoon. The weather people say snow Tuesday. It can’t be that bad, though, since the lowest low for the next week is scheduled for tonight, and it’s only 14ºF. 14º isn’t very cold. I can handle 14º. Much more of this -10ºF with -45ºF wind chill, and I think I might actually be ready for Phoenix in February. Nah.