As a newly hired Flight Attendant, one of the less delightful parts of the job is how you are assigned trips. New hires are generally "reserves". Each company structures their reserve system differently, but essentially what it boils down to is this: we sit and we wait for the phone to ring. We are the ones who get called in when another flight attendant has a cancelled flight, sick call, or missed commuter connection.
All summer and fall I flew very consistently, getting called for trips the majority of the time I was available.
Then winter came....
In December I flew very little. Very very little. So little that I almost started to wonder if I still had a job. This was the result of a perfect storm of circumstances: my seniority moved up just enough that I stopped getting called at the last minute, there was a computer glitch, and luckily there were very few major weather events. So far January looks like it will be similar in terms of flight hours.
Here's a peek into the daily life of a Reserve Flight Attendant during a slow time:
The night before, you check your assignment for the next day. While the page loads you're like:
When you see you've been assigned a twelve hour on-call shift instead of a trip you're like:
When you check to see how far down on the list you are to be called, you're like:
And then when you realize someone junior to you was assigned a trip you wanted, you're like:
You keep your ringer on max volume so that you WILL NOT miss that call.
When you wake up you debate whether you should get out of bed or shower because what's even the point if you aren't going to work?
You accidentally eat way too much because you're bored.
So you hit the gym like:
All the while you're like, "Heyyyyyy Crew Scheduling!"
You spend the rest of your day watching Netflix, crafting, reading, blogging, and who knows what else, but the whole time you're just like:
Until your shift is finally over and since you didn't get called you're just like:
Unless a co-worker on Facebook asks if it's legal to be assigned RAP A after RAP C and you're like:
But you know that someday your trip will come and you'll be like:
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