Stuck in IAD


by Berck

Maybe forever. The worst part? I’m not going to get home tonight.

I was supposed to fly IAD-ATL-IAD-JFK today. I got up this morning too early and as I was about to head down to the lobby for a 7:00am shuttle to the airport, my phone rang. Crew tracking was letting me know that our IAD-ATL-IAD flight was “downgraded” to an ERJ because our CRJ was still broken. (We brought it in with some Maintenance deferrals which expired last night and needed to be fixed before the plane could be flown again.) Since I can’t fly an ERJ, this meant I could go back to bed and show up for the IAD-JFK portion of the flight.

I got to the airport at about 12:45. The flight was posted as delayed to 2:30pm. So I had time to get a sandwich at Potbelly Subs. I like Potbelly; I think they’re a Chicago thing, but it seems there’s one in the IAD airport. Previously, the only one I’d eaten at is in Midway.

It’s now 6:00pm. The plane is still not fixed. The weather has gotten bad enough that there’s a constant string of canceled flights and the line at the customer service counter is a few miles long. I’m starting to think that I’m not going to get out tonight at all, and even if I do, it looks like I’m not going to make it home tonight.

And that really stinks because this was my only break this month with 3 days off in a row.

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Silly Evangelical Christians


by Berck

What are they upset about now? That both presidential candidates are meeting at a mega-church. Seriously.

Andy Tanenbaum at electoral-vote.com says it well:

Key evangelical leaders are worried sick. Former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, and The Call leader Lou Engle are holding events Friday to counter a joint appearance by John McCain and Barack Obama at pastor Rick Warren’s megachurch in Orange County the same day. They are very concerned because Warren is a hugely influential religious leader and best-selling author who is more concerned with what Christians should do rather than what they shouldn’t do. He feels they have an obligation to fight poverty, disease, and ignorance rather than working full time to ban abortion and bash gays. It is understandable that people who have devoted their lives to using religion as a cover for their political views would find someone like Warren extremely threatening. If McCain continues to be less than enthusiastic about their issues and they oppose all Democrats on principle, they have no horse in this race and that’s rather disconcerting, hence the attempt to drum up attention and try to force McCain to the right. But it is unlikely he will give them anything more than lip service since he needs the votes from independents to win.

Fortunately, it looks like the population is finally tired of being told by a bunch of religious fanatics what they can’t do. I figure things can only get better from here.

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The F Word


by Berck

Things are not looking good for my employer, and by extension, me. They’ve just announced that 49 pilots were furloughed yesterday. All of those pilots were still in new-hire ground school.

Being furloughed is basically the same as being fired. The only difference is that when the company hires again, they have to hire the furloughed pilots first. Furlough sounds like not such a bad thing, and makes one think that you might get some kind of benefits. This isn’t the case.

When a unionized company furloughs, they have to start at the bottom of the seniority list. Right now there are still 197 pilots under me on the seniority list, so I should be okay for the time being.

Still no word on the official date for the last CRJ flights out of New York. I’m guessing it’s going to be sometime around the end of September. After that, I’ll have to go through some training and much paperwork in order to be based in Chicago.

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Stupid Reserve.


by Berck

It looks like I’m back on reserve next bid period. It seems that 5 folks senior to me transferred into JFK from other bases. This stinks.

I’m seriously considering going to ORD in order to hold a line. There are 73 lines there, and I’d be 54. But, to do so, I’d have to go through training again. No idea how much training, how long it would take, or how long I’d have to wait around for it. While a free place to stay in JFK is great, commuting to sit reserve bites. The big reason I picked JFK is that I wouldn’t have to sit reserve, but that didn’t really pan out.

Someone know of a room off the blue line in Chicago for cheap?

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