December 29, 2013 JFK: TPA: BOS

I got downstairs at 5:10am this morning to be early for our 5:30 shuttle.  I was the first person in line waiting for the shuttle, but I waited for the rest of my crew before I headed to the bus.  Little did I know, the bus filled up and even though we made a ‘reservation’ for the 5:30am shuttle, there was no room for us!  I can’t believe that the hotel doesn’t make better effort to keep space available for people who signed up for it in advance.

By the time our F3 got downstairs, the hotel told us another shuttle would arrive in 5 minutes.  5 minutes turned into 20, we were late to the airport, and caused the flight to be delayed.  We rushed on, did our safety checks and began boarding asap.  We were able to close the airplane door 5 minutes after the scheduled time (which I thought was pretty darn good).

The first flight was down to Tampa.  Very uneventful, since most of the people slept the entire time.  It’s really hard to stay awake on these flights, I always just want to sleep.  I was tired and didn’t even try being silly during the safety demo.

Our second flight was a little more fun, but we were all still pretty tired and the turbulence was pretty rough.  I made friends with a couple at the front who were pretty fun.  They clapped during my safety demo and told me I did an amazing job.  Haha.  Silly.  I did my usual bit of giving customers a hard time. 

The Tampa AO told us a gross story though.  She said one time, a PR customer took a big poop in the middle of the aisle on the plane.  The customer then proceeded to “pass out” and fell onto the flight attendant, knocking him over into the poop!!  The other customers on the plane also failed to notice the poop and continued walking through it, tracking it all over the plane and eventually through the airport!!  GROSS!  I can’t imagine!

Anyways, by the end of the flight, the F1 and I were so delirious; we were doing voice impressions on the jump seat and laughing to ourselves hysterically.  He’s pretty darn good at Russian and Australian.  I tried talking him into doing the announcements with an accent, but he wouldn’t haha.  I love being silly.  J

December 25 - Merry Christmas!!!

I went down to breakfast at the hotel.  All the food at this hotel is very expensive, but I figured, if I’m spending Christmas alone, I’m at least going to splurge on breakfast.  It was totally not worth it.  Some hotels give free breakfast that’s exactly the same as this one, which cost me $17.  I went back to my room and enjoyed just laying around and relaxing all morning.

Later in the day, Scheduling called (bum bum bum…).  Instead of sending me back to Boston today, they assigned me to an LAX red eye turn from JFK.  I was a little nervous to be working with a JFK crew because I’ve heard such bad things about them, but it ended up being an amazing flight.  My crew was awesome.  They’re two guys who are friends and they work together a lot.  The one cooked gooey chocolate cookies for us and they both wore santa hats.  I wish I’d remembered to bring my hat!  Several passengers brought us gifts – mini cup cakes, starbucks gift cards and candy.  It was really sweet.

We got off in LAX for some Starbucks coffee and began boarding the plane immediately afterwards.  Our Captain on the flight back was really sweet.  He bought candy canes to hand out to all of the children on our flight.  As always, it was difficult to stay awake on the flight back.

One interesting thing I learned on this flight is that when we offer sandwiches and other fresh food, we can only service it for up to 4 hours on the flight.  We don’t have refrigerators or anything to keep the food cold, so they put dry ice in the carts with the food.  Once we land, all of the fresh food is thrown away.  However, the crew is not allowed to eat the food or give it away.  This seems incredibly wasteful to me and I was really disappointed about it.

All in all, I couldn’t have asked for a better crew and I really enjoyed working with both of them.  I stayed the night in JFK and then deadheaded back to Boston on the 26.

December 24 - Christmas Eve

The reserve schedule didn’t end up getting released until 11 pm last night.  I was put on 3am to 3pm home reserve and forgot that I have to wake up to check-in for my reserve duty.  I missed the phone calls from Scheduling and was given a “no show” on my record.  That’s a really big deal and would put me on automatic probation.  I emailed my supervisor immediately at 7am when I woke up.

Soon after, I received a call from scheduling about a trip assignment.

The only thing that could make up for me not getting the Orlando layover is getting another really good trip. And that’s exactly what happened.  They want me to deadhead (get paid to fly to a different location) to JFK and then fly our brand new A321 plane to Puerto Rico.  I was disappointed when I realized I would be flying back to JFK the same night (a red-eye turn), but my disappointment was short lived when I realized I would be flying with one of my fav roomies.  He’s friends with the other 2 girls who will be working with us and said they’re a lot of fun.  How awesome:  a good trip, fun crew and lots of paid time on the holiday!

We arrived at the JFK airport 2 hours before our scheduled departure, so the 4 of us went to grab dinner.  There’s a buffet type place in the JFK airport that I really like.  You can purchase all sorts of food, but my favorite is to fill up a salad bowl and then they charge based on the weight.

After dinner, we headed over to the gate, but the plane wasn’t there yet.  The gate agent was one of those people who has major issues with everything.  “I speak Spanish, but I refuse to do so because the company doesn’t pay me to speak Spanish.” And a few days after the flight, I get an email that the gate agent also tagged the “crew” as the reason for the flight being delayed leaving… um, the plane was late, I’m not sure how that was our fault.  Whatever.

The flight to San Juan was pretty uneventful.  The A321 was ok, but I was really thankful to be the #4.  I got to stand and sit in the very back.  The #2 and #3 are stuck sitting next to passengers and the #3 has to sit FACING a passenger in the row behind her.  The other problem was that the tv’s had not been installed on the plane yet, so a lot of customers were irritated about that.  The supervisors told us there would be games and magazines on board for people to use … games turned out to be foam boards for tick tack toe and the magazines were some free airplane magazine.  People were a little irritated.

I’m really into my book, the Divergent series, so I spent my extra time on the flight reading.

We arrived back in JFK very early on Christmas morning.  My crew and I talked about getting together for drinks in one of our rooms, but once we walked in and closed the doors… everyone fell asleep.  

December 23 - Back to Boston

Nicole and I got back to Boston and traveled downtown to see our friend, Juli, from training.  Juli is based in Long Beach, but she was on a layover here for 18 hours.  We walked around downtown a little and went to the Original Cheers.

Later in the day:

So its 10pm the day before Christmas and the reserve schedule has not been released yet for tomorrow.  It was supposed to be released at 3pm.  I'm not sure what's wrong with their system, but it's pretty terrible.

There was a flight with a layover in Orlando tomorrow and Palm Beach the following day.  I requested the trip on December 2 and as of this morning there were two positions still available on the flight.  Even though the airline is really hurting for people to cover flights and it's a 3 day trip (which I'm available for), they told me I can't have it and that I have to wait to see what I get tomorrow.  I can't freaking believe that!  I'm so pissed off at this stupid system! That doesn't make any sense.  So many people call out "sick" for the holidays and the ones who are actually working can't even pick up trips they want??? Just ridiculous. Maybe I'll be sick tomorrow.

December 22 - Orlando Layover

Well it's not quite Christmas, but it might as well be!  Layover in Orlando tonight!

I called my parents, Justin, and my grandparents to go to dinner.  Everyone came and again, I dragged Nicole to dinner with everyone.  We had such a great time laughing and being silly.

I really miss my family, especially right now.  But I'm thankful I'm able to travel down here to visit while working.

Right now we're landing in Newark and I have one more trip to go.  I'm hopeful I can get assigned to a trip with a layover in Orlando or west Palm for Christmas.  I put in "requests" for 3 different trips that would put me in Orlando on the 24, but we'll see what happens.

The next day we headed back to Boston.

Nicole's been adopted into the family.

Guy working at the hotel

Just plain being silly

Me and Justin.

One of my co workers said I look old in these photos.  Not sure how I feel about that :-/

December 21 - PBI Layover

One of the perks of this job is getting layovers in cities where I have friends and family.  When I got the 3:07am call from Scheduling, I wasn't particularly excited, especially because I never fell asleep that night. However, once I heard the trip had layover in both west Palm and Orlando, I was pretty excited.  The holidays without my family are really hard. It definitely doesn't feel like Christmas this year and I'm trying to forget it’s even here.

I got to the airport around 5.  The buses and trains in Boston don't start until 5:30, so I had to catch the Sunrise Shuttle for the first time.  The Sunrise Shuttle is a van for airport employees and runs from 430 till 530, I think. 

I get to the airport to find out that Nicole (from training) is the F1 on the trip!  It's my first trip with a friend!  And it's my first multi day trip on the E190.  Nothing eventful has happened during the flights really.  The early morning flights were almost empty (half full) and the later flights were completely full.  We left Orlando today at 5:30am and there were 47 out of 100 passengers.  Everyone slept for the most part and I only had 5 drink orders.  Our next flight had 100 of 100.

The trip itinerary was:

Day 1: BOS: Richmond: BOS: Palm Beach

Day 2: Palm Beach: White Plains, NY: Orlando

Day 3: Orlando: Newark: Boston

Not a bad schedule.  I text dad and Justin at 4am to tell them the news haha.  Orlando layover!!!

It's been a lot of young families on the planes, obviously traveling for the holidays.  They've all been nice and polite, for the most part.  On the flight to Orlando, I did have one guy yell at me.  The convo went something like this:

Me:  “Sir, can I get you a drink?”

Him:  “Yeah, a diet coke. And can I get some airflow on this planet?!? My air vent doesn't work and the sun is shining in on me, I'm so freaking hot! I paid $170 for this??”

(he has a newspaper stuffed in the ceiling to block the sun)

Me:  “Sir, you can close the window shade.”  (guy in front of him reaches back and closes the shade.  Guy snatches his newspaper down)

Him:  “This is freaking ridiculous!”

Sigh.

I keep walking and taking drink orders while other passengers give me that look like "what a jerk".  I thought about being rude to him, but instead I brought him extra ice with his drink to help cool him down, told him I turned down the air, and that if I could move him I would but the flight was 100% full so there wasn't much more I could do for him.  He was calmer after that, prob not happy but at least calmer.

On the layover in West Palm, Nicole and I ran into my crash pad roommate at the lobby bar.  Small world!  At 8, my cousins, Joe and Jill came to pick me up for dinner and I dragged Nicole along.  We had such a great time visiting with them and they really enjoyed showing Nicole around Sweet Tomatoes because she'd never been before.

December 20, 2013

So I didn’t get a California turn.  No, I got a 4 leg trip BOS:JFK:BOS:EWR:BOS (EWR is Newark, NJ).  Pretty much the only trips I’ve gotten so far are either New York area or Florida.  I’m really hoping to go somewhere else fun… like Las Vegas, Texas, California, etc…

The trips went well.  On the way to JFK, it got pretty bumpy.  I need to learn when to sit down or not, it’s hard to tell.  I was on the E190, so there are only 2 flight attendants.  My #1 was nice, but she didn’t want to talk or hang out much.  Which was ok with me because I started reading Divergent and I’m hooked.  I wanted to tell passengers, “yeah yeah, get it yourself, I’m reading”.

All the trips today were really short (45 mins or so), which makes serving drinks/snacks really difficult… gotta rush.

When we were delayed coming out of Boston to Newark, my #1 and First Officer got into a tiff.  .  The F/O wanted to give customers (who were stuck on the plane) whatever they wanted, without regard to our In-Flight rules. 

Customer asks the F1 “Can I plug my phone in somewhere?”

F1:  No I’m sorry

FO:  (butts in) Oh yeah, she can plug your phone in right there.  (We’re not allowed to plug customer phones in on the plane because they can be damaged)

Customer 2:  Can I get some coffee?

F1:  No, I’m sorry, but I can give you water.

FO:  (butts in) Of course she can give you coffee.  Give them whatever they need (directed to the F1).  (this is bad because if one customer gets coffee, everyone wants coffee and we have to collect all of it before we take off so it can delay our take off even more).

After this situation, the FO goes into the cockpit and proceeds to complain about the F1.  We can hear the pilots through the cockpit door. 

The rest of the trip the F1 was so upset about the whole situation and after our trip the FO says “wow, was that F1 just as bad in the back?  It must’ve been terrible working with her”. 

Eek, I stayed quiet.  I thought they were both nice ladies, it was just a funky situation.  The FO wanted to make sure we were giving great customer service, but the F1 was trying to follow the rules.  Was pretty awkward though.