I have been a bad blogger, a very bad blogger. I would love to say I was really busy this summer doing all sorts of outdoorsy magical things, but that would be a lie. I was in summer school! It turns out my German was pretty lame in the Spring, and I flunked my qualification test with my company. So when the opportunity to take a 1 month intensive program presented itself, I jumped on it!
Since then, I have started and stopped so many blogs. Some about International flying, some about jet lag, some about the difference in International & domestic crew... all these are still to come (when I can eventually get around to it) but right now, I had a couple of seconds so I thought I would just blog about my experience today when I missed my flight.
Have you ever been on a flight as a passenger and heard the following announcement "Ladies and Gentlemen we are regret to inform you that we will be (x amount) minutes delayed, due to a missing cabin crew member!"
If you heard that announcement a couple of days ago heading to Florida... It was my fault! Well, not really my fault, only kind of my fault. The rest of the blame goes to horrible weather, and horrible Montreal drivers & traffic. This morning I was up bright and early at 6am, if you follow me on twitter you'll know that I was not too thrilled about it either! I got up, dressed and was in the car over an hour before I had to be at the airport. Now, why would you do that Jenn... when you only live 35 mins from the airport? Well, in the last two days it has snowed pretty bad and the roads are bad and the drivers are worse Blah Blah, not to mention it was rush hour. Half way there my husband says "You have to be there in 20 mins and we're not even halfway... I don't think your going to make it!" So I call scheduling and let them know. I get Larry on on the phone... I don't know Larry, but he seems like a nice guy! (actually I don't know ANY crew schedulers... and I think I'm going to keep it that way!)
So, Larry asks me "Do you think you'll make it?" I tell him "At this point I honestly don't know!". He tells me to call him back in half an hour. Half an hour passes, I got maybe 10 km on the highway from where I was when I first talked to Larry. I call Larry back, again he is very understanding, he tells me that it's clear that I'm not making the flight- but to head to the airport anyway and to call him when I'm nearly there. I call Larry back a final time, about 20 mins later. Yet I don't get Larry- I get Cynthia- and Cynthia's got something up her butt! Cynthia is not impressed that I'm late for my flight, and is taking it so personally, you would think that any money lost is coming from her paycheck! Well, as you can imagine it doesn't take long before Cynthia and I get into it! We're arguing- yet both trying to be as respectful and 'professional' as possible. In the meantime I was texting all my flight attendant friends to get their take on the situation.
Now, the last paragraph might be really confusing if your not in the biz. So here it is- at my little airline (can't speak for the others) you are either present for a flight or not. However, not... is a big deal. You have to meet with one of your supervisors and it becomes a reprimand that stays on record... forever?! Although it's not confirmed I believe that 2 or more may result in termination. So, basically as a flight attendant there's only 3 really big no-no's you can make: 1) Be intoxicated on duty 2) steal from the company 3) not show up for a flight. However, we are flight attendants- not super heros! Everyone gets a flat tire, everyone has a family emergency (here and there), and everyone in their lifetime- at one point will get stuck in traffic... even Cynthia! So when you are not present and it's really not your fault it's called being 'not present without consequence'. As far as I know, you don't lose your hours over a situation like that, however... If you've over slept and missed a flight, that would be the kind of situation you would lose your hours over, because that would be considered "not present with consequence". In some cases the company will do everything in it's power to help you to "catch up" to the rest of your cycle. Which means, if at any point one of your flights passes through home base you can take over from there. My cycle was passing through my home base again, so seeing as I would be missing the turn to Florida and catching up with it 10hrs later I thought Cynthia would let me go home and come back later. When I suggested this, Cynthia went ballistic. Threatening me that she would report me to the company as "not present with consequence"! Just for mentioning I wait out my 10 hrs at home and not in the crew lounge!! At that point I told her there was no conceivable way I was sitting in the airport for 10hrs when I didn't need to, and she needed to do/report whatever she felt she needed to do/report... and I wouldn't be showing up to continue the rest of my cycle! Shortly after hanging up with Cynthia I got a call back from her, apologizing and telling me to go home and have a good rest and to report back to the airport later to continue my flight! See that's the thing, when things go crazy at an airline, they go crazy for everyone- and she needed me! (... And I was happy for that because I didn't want to be reassigned to worse flying for the next 4 days.)
I wonder if there's any crew schedulers out there with similar blogs?
Later that day, when I got back to the airport to catch up with my cycle, (headed for Toronto) I got a phone call on my mobile as soon as I stepped onto the plane. It was Larry! Larry sounded panicked. " Jenn I need you on the Chicago flight... 10 minutes ago!" Next thing you know, I'm running off the plane, through the airport, through security, through customs & immigration and all the way through the USA side of the airport. Phew! Thank God I'm young, I would like to see a senior mama do that! Arriving extremely disheveled on the plane, everyone on the plane starts to applaud me. Now, all of us flight attendants have been through this. Getting my trip changed at last minute was due to another flight attendant getting in a car accident, but when the gate agent made the announcement for the Chicago flight being delayed all she said was, "It is delayed due to a missing Cabin crew member!" So when I arrived onboard everyone just assumed I was that missing crew member, and not someone who had just ran the equivalent of 10 km's, had to throw out about $25 worth of food that was for my 4 day trip ( because you can't bring it into the USA) and now because of that the flight was still going ahead and not being cancelled. A lot of Flight attendants get pissed off when people clap sarcastically... but i'll never turn down the opportunity to be applauded- fake or not! ( how sad am I! Lol)
All in all is was a rough day, but I made it through. I can say honestly that I hope that is the last time I am ever late again- but something tells me that living in a place like Montreal where you can get 30 cm dumped overnight... that's not really realistic!
