Cruising Attitude

by Heather Poole

  Flight attendant schedules average eighty hours per month—and by that I mean strictly flying hours. Time on the ground does not count toward a flight attendant’s pay. And the clock doesn’t officially start ticking until the aircraft door is shut and the airplane backs away from the gate; the flight attendant saying hello to you while you’re boarding is not getting paid yet. Because of this, delays affect flight attendants just as much as they do passengers, maybe even more so. But this is also the reason that we can—and frequently do—trade, drop, and pick up trips from one another. This allows commuters to “back up” their trips (fly several trips in a row), which enables them to maximize time at work and get more days off at home. Commuters tend to work “high-time” trips. These are trips that are worth a lot of hours, enabling them to get their hours in as quickly as possible. For example, one four-hour trip takes less actual time than two two-hour trips, even though the paid flying time is exactly the same.

  When it comes to finding a place to stay between trips, a commuter doesn’t need much, since we spend very little time on the ground at our base cities. Enter the crash pad, a place where crew members literally crash between trips. These can be large apartments, a single room in a house, or even just a friend’s couch. Some crash pads only allow men, others house only women, and some are mixed. In a crash pad with both men and women, usually the men will sleep in one room and women will take another, but not all the time. On top of that, there are crash pads for flight attendants and crash pads for pilots. Even these can be a mix of both flight attendants and pilots, but if so, usually the flight attendants will stick together in one room while the pilots stay in another.

  The cost of a crash pad can range anywhere from $100 to $300 a month, depending on the size of the space and the number of people sharing it. A few flight attendants might be willing to fork over a little extra cash for their own room, but most of us prefer sharing with several other flight attendants to bring down the cost. Bunk beds make this possible. This is yet another aspect of flight attendant life ruled by seniority. The best beds, bottom bunks away from doors and light, are claimed by the most senior crash pad dwellers. The upper bunks tend to belong to the most junior crash pad residents. Rooms are also determined by seniority. In a house with more than one level, the top floor is the most senior since there’s less traffic.

  If you can believe it, there are even flight attendants who share beds to save even more money. These are called “hot beds.” Because flight attendants are constantly coming and going, hot beds are literally kept warm because they’re always in use. The way this works is simple. Before leaving for a trip, flight attendants will pack their pillows and sheets and store them in a tub with the rest of their belongings. Other flight attendants can use the bed on a first come, first served basis. There are sign-up sheets for hot beds at the house or apartment, so that flight attendants can sign up in advance on the nights they need them. This allows them to adjust their schedules accordingly.

  Of course, a crash pad isn’t the only option for a commuter. Some stay at airport hotels offering discounted rates and free shuttle service to airline employees. To cut costs, they will share these rooms with other flight attendants, even flight attendants they don’t know. It doesn’t matter if two flight attendants sharing a room work for the same company or have ever met before. Because the job is the same wherever you go, regardless of where you work or who you work for—and because we know that everyone who works for an airline has had a background check—we tend to have an automatic sense of trust and respect. So when two flight attendants out of uniform discover each other during or after a flight, only to find out that neither of them has a crash pad, they very well might pair off and get a room together. The rules in this situation are simple: no small talk, set cell phones on vibrate, only take calls in the lobby, and be packed and ready to go before lights-out. It’s all business when it comes to commuting—get in, go to sleep, get out! Sometimes I wonder: in what other occupation, besides prostitution, do two strangers trust each other enough to spend the night together in a hotel room five minutes after initial contact?

  On the most budget-conscious (and in my opinion, least comfortable) level, there’s even a small community of commuting flight attendants who have chosen to “live” at the airport between trips. Before 9/11 commuters could wander down to an empty plane to sleep in first class. Even though no one is “allowed” to live in flight operations, some flight attendants do, and have established a sorority-like environment. By day they take bus rides to Jamaica or Kew Gardens to get hair and nails done, or even better, trips to the city for fake designer bags in Chinatown. At night there are Chinese food takeout parties. The “quiet room” is where they sleep. It’s a dark room with several recliners lining the walls, and it’s normally meant as a resting area for crew members with a long sit time between flights.

  There are many unwritten rules one must abide by when sleeping in flight operations. Most important is the chair located in the far right-hand corner of the room. It belongs to Kat. No one else is allowed to sit in it. God help the flight attendant who accidentally sits in Kat’s special spot, a chair that looks just like all the other chairs except that right next to it sits a fan and a small wooden chest of drawers, topped by a dainty lamp that she lugged on a flight all the way from home. If a flight attendant is too loud at night, Kat will take care of the situation by flashing the guilty party with her FAA-required flashlight. If a flight attendant unfamiliar with the quiet room seating arrangement settles into the wrong recliner, that flight attendant could very well wake up shaking violently as two other flight attendants push the recliner across the room and out of the way. Despite the seeming convenience of a night at flight operations, if one of these flight attendants has enough time to jump on a flight home and still make it back to work in time the following day, even if that means she’ll only spend five hours in her own bed, she will.

  There are commuters, and even some noncommuters, who actually live in the employee parking lot at JFK. Their motor homes and campers line the back fence. If too many recreational vehicles begin to accumulate on the lot, the gods in charge of airport parking will intervene and run them off. No big deal. They’re always packed and ready to go to a nearby airport where they’ll set up camp again. The more adventurous, those without a permanent address, will drive across country and spend months at a time visiting new cities by day and sleeping in different airport parking lots at night.

  And then there’s Tom, the only commuter I know without a crash pad who manages to live the ultimate high-roller lifestyle. By gambling in Vegas he’s acquired enough hotel comps to live for free in luxury on the strip for one week out of each month. He’s been doing this for years now by flying high time and arranging his days off into blocks of three. When he’s not living it up in Sin City, he’ll either visit his parents for a few days or crash on an old friend’s couch. Personal effects are stored in the trunk of a car he keeps parked in the employee lot or inside a gigantic suitcase that has yet to leave Ops. There’s a reason the airline won’t allow us into the frequent-flier lounges: We’d move in and never leave!

  When we landed in Crew Gardens, Georgia and I were not “commuters.” (Not yet anyway.) Because we were new hires, we were on probation for six months straight—if we did anything at all wrong, we were at risk of losing our jobs. Even worse, we didn’t get travel benefits until our seventh month on the job! This is how Georgia and I came to actually live full-time in a crash pad. Now if we’d had our passes, we would have flown home as often as possible, that’s how homesick we were. Instead we were stuck in New York, sharing a large bedroom in a three-story house with who knows how many commuters and six other new hires who also did not have travel benefits! And when we weren’t flying, we were all there together 24/7.

  Our crash pad on Beverly Road was owned and run by a man named Victor. He charged each of us $150 a bed. A retired TWA flight attendant from South America, he had a thick accent that wa
s hard to understand. I figured he had to be in his midsixties, based on the handlebar mustache and two strands of greasy hair that covered his freckled head. He occupied the third floor, which consisted of a master bedroom bigger than most one-bedroom New York apartments, a tiny kitchen, and a bathroom large enough to house two chairs and a claw-foot bathtub. Victor, unlike most male flight attendants I’ve encountered, was not gay—although he did enjoy soaking naked underneath a mountain of bubbles. I know this because the night we arrived Georgia and I went upstairs to introduce ourselves and pay the rent. We knocked on his bedroom door and a voice from a door down the hall told us to come in. We did. That was the first time we encountered him in the tub. Victor also had a tendency to hang out around the house wearing nothing but a mankini or a long satin robe. The guy was pretty laid-back, considering he kept the thermostat under lock and key and didn’t allow men inside the house (rule number 1: There were no other rules). Well, no men other than the two pilots who lived in the basement. I liked Victor.

  Even though I had an idea of what life would be like living in a crash pad before I went to bed that first night in New York, it was still jarring to wake up and find Georgia missing from her bed, but two other women sleeping soundly nearby. How in the world did I not hear them come in? I threw on a robe and quietly tiptoed out of the bedroom, softly closing the doors behind me. In the living room I found Georgia sitting on the sofa drinking coffee. The television was off. There was no sign of Marge.

  “I didn’t think you were ever gonna wake up. Better hurry and get dressed or we’re going to be late for flight attendant orientation!” Georgia chirped.

  Flight attendant orientation was set up to familiarize us with the airports, all three of them: LaGuardia, Kennedy, and Newark. This way, before our first trip, we’d know how to get from the employee parking lot to the terminal, where to find flight operations, and how to go through airport security to get to the gates. Before running to get dressed, I offered to call for a cab.

  A familiar scratchy voice answered the phone. “Kew Gardens!”

  After I mentioned my name and address, the voice burst out laughing. “What’s so funny?” I asked.

  “Did Miss Louisiana sleep well last night?”

  It was him, the crazy old driver who was not just a driver but in fact a dispatcher who had grabbed a set of keys because there weren’t enough drivers on the road last night. His name was Eddie. I knew right away that Eddie and I weren’t going to get along. Being from Texas, I wasn’t accustomed to people who weren’t polite, who said what they meant and meant what they said. Then again I wasn’t accustomed to much of anything about life in New York, which Eddie was quick to point out.

  “Just send a car!” I yelled, hanging up on him before he could hang up on me.

  Wide-eyed Georgia said, “Listen to you, Miss New York.”

  I didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Only time would tell.

  Chapter 5

  Prepare for Takeoff

  RESERVE FLIGHT ATTENDANTS have no life. None. Zero. Zilch. We sit around in our pajamas half the day waiting for crew schedule to call, and complaining about being on reserve to anyone who will listen. The other half of the day is spent explaining that we are in fact working, even though we are not actually on an airplane, since we’re stuck at home and unable to do what we’d really like to do. This explains why the sock and underwear drawer get a complete makeover—twice—each reserve month. And nothing goes better with reserve than the Weather Channel. We’re always tuned in. When there’s bad weather, crews go illegal, and when crews are unable to fly, reserve flight attendants get called out to cover their trips. The only thing good about being on reserve is we might get to work a trip we would otherwise never fly in a million years. Senior flight attendants hold the best trips, but when they call in sick, flight attendants on reserve fill in.

  Here’s how reserve works. Bidding is the act of requesting a line. A line is a sequence of trips in consecutive order flight attendants (well, those not on reserve) are offered to work each month. At my airline we are offered more than two hundred lines. Each line has anywhere from three to ten positions to work, depending on the aircraft type. Lines are awarded by company seniority. This is why the best trips, flights to Asia and Europe, are always staffed with the most senior crew, and why the ground staff in Honolulu have been known to ask if the wheelchairs meeting the flight are for passengers or flight attendants. If a flight attendant has a seniority number of 200, that flight attendant should bid for at least two hundred positions to make sure she doesn’t get a “miss bid” and be awarded a line she didn’t want.

  While nonreserve flight attendants choose from lines of trips, reserve flight attendants choose from lines of days off. Line holders can get ten to twenty days off a month, depending on their seniority. Reserve flight attendants on average only get ten days off. Days off are grouped together in three or four blocks per month, and each block can range anywhere from one to five days. When you’re on reserve, the airline can (and will) assign a trip at any time of day or night. Sleep, something most people take for granted, becomes a guessing game since you never know when you’ll have to fly next—crack of dawn or all night long.

  When crew schedule, also known just as scheduling, contacts a flight attendant, the flight attendant has fifteen minutes to return the call and accept the trip. Otherwise she is assigned a “missed trip.” Missing an assignment more than once can result in company action. If you’re on probation like Georgia and I were, it can lead directly to termination. After flight attendants are assigned a trip, they have at least two hours to get to the airport and sign in on a computer in flight operations. Sign-in must occur an hour before the flight departs. If it doesn’t, a reserve flight attendant working airport standby will be sent to cover the trip. Standby flight attendants spend hours sitting at the airport waiting around in case a flight attendant, even another reserve flight attendant, doesn’t make sign-in on time. Being paid to hang out might sound like fun, but it can be draining, especially after sitting standby for five hours and then getting called out to work a five-hour trip ten minutes before you thought you’d be heading home. And since flight attendants on standby (or reserve) never know where they’re going or how long they’ll be gone, packing is always difficult. Standby flight attendants are only used in emergency situations, such as keeping flights staffed with what the FAA calls “minimum crew.” In other words, there must be a certain ratio of flight attendants to passengers on board each flight, as well as enough flight attendants to operate the door exits in case of an emergency evacuation.

  Reserve is a lot like being an on-call doctor—we must be ready for duty at all times. There are no late nights, absolutely no alcohol, and no going outside a manageable radius of our base (ours included three airports: John F. Kennedy, LaGuardia, and Newark). We have to be packed and ready to go at a moment’s notice. This is why some flight attendants who use Laundromats are reluctant to wash their clothes. No one wants to get the dreaded call during the middle of a wash cycle! Or even worse, during a shower. (Don’t worry—we still shower. We just do it quickly.) It’s not uncommon to order a pizza and then get a call to cover a late-night trip to London and be out the door and on our way to the airport before the food even arrives. There’s no warning, no lead time, and no excuses.

  Each day at a certain time, reserve flight attendants call in to see if they’ve been assigned a trip, also known as a sequence, for the following day. If we do not have a sequence on our schedule, we queue up with a number. This number is based on the hours already flown during the month. The flight attendant with the least amount of hours is assigned the lowest number and will most likely be called out to work first. Sounds simple enough, right? Wrong. This is where reserve gets confusing. Because the person with the lowest number may not be “legal” to work. This is why flight attendants on reserve are always on edge. A high number on the reserve list is always a relief to those looking forward to
a full night of rest, but it does not mean a flight attendant can relax. Reserve is like Russian roulette. You never know who will be called out next.

  What can make a flight attendant illegal to work a trip? Usually it has to do with hours, number of days on duty, and aircraft equipment. A flight attendant can remain on duty without a layover from fourteen to sixteen hours, depending on the airline and whether or not it’s a domestic or an international trip. A flight attendant needs eleven hours off between the end of one trip and the beginning of another. Reserve flight attendants get twelve hours. The minimum number of hours a flight attendant has “behind the door” at a layover hotel is eight, and the maximum number of days a flight attendant can work or remain on call is six. When flight attendants go illegal—exceed one of these numbers—a reservist is called in to cover the trip. If this happens “down line” (at an airport that does not have a flight attendant base), flights are either delayed or canceled if FAA minimum crew cannot be met.

  These very same legalities affect reserve flight attendants, as they determine who will get called out to work next. Say I’m first on the reserve list and a three-day trip pops up. It departs at 8:00 a.m. Because my trip the day before landed at 10:00 p.m., I am not legal for the trip. Since I cannot sign in until 10:00 a.m., I cannot work a trip that departs before 11:00 a.m. The trip is then passed to the second flight attendant on reserve. But that person is only good for two days before entering a block of days off. The three-day trip is then assigned to the third person. Number 3 has worked more than four days in a row, so he is unable to take the trip since it would total seven days in a row of being on duty. The fourth person isn’t qualified on the aircraft equipment, so the fifth person gets the trip. But she has the same problem I have. And so on and so on and so on until the fifteenth person on the list gets woken up by crew schedule at four in the morning to work a three-day trip.