January 4 - Back to Boston

After a lovely crepe breakfast with my F1 and F3, we headed back to Boston today.  So here’s the weird part with scheduling.  Yesterday, they called my hotel room and said “can you work the flight back to Boston today, it’d leave at 2pm”. 

Me:  “yes, I don’t mind working, but I’m not legal to fly until 9pm tonight, so we will need to leave after then”.

Scheduling:  “oh ok, I see that on your schedule now.  Never mind, continue with the previous plan”  (there was no previous plan besides me relaxing in Aruba”.

Me:  “We have a plane and a full crew here.  I’m more than happy to work the flight back tomorrow morning?”

Scheduling:  “We are well aware of the situation, we’ll let you know if anything changes.”

Ok, so here’s what scheduling ends up telling us to do:

Both pilots fly back to JFK on the 3rd

The F1 flies back to JFK on the 3rd

Tomorrow, I deadhead back to Boston on the 4th

Tomorrow, the F3 works the flight back to Boston on the 4th

2 Flight attendants are deadheaded down to Aruba from JFK to work the flight back to Boston on the 4th

Those 2 flight attendants will then be deadheaded back to JFK

Does this make sense?  We have a full crew – 2 pilots, 3 flight attendants and an airplane.  By the third day, we are all legal and willing to work, but for some reason they decided not to let us.  Weird if you ask me.

What we actually did:

Both pilots refused to go to JFK on the 3rd.  Instead they remained in Aruba and flew the plane back on the 4th, because we would've had no pilots otherwise.  The F1 stayed in Aruba and caught a different flight back to his home town (on a different carrier), the F3 worked the flight, and we bumped a passenger off the flight so I could comfortable sit while the JFK flight attendants worked the flight.  

I got back to Boston at 5pm on January 4.