End of an Era

Yesterday, I just finished a 4-day trip with a fantastic crew! A trip is anywhere from 1 – 4 days, and they comprise of our daily flight segments called legs and our overnights – the city we remain for the night. Kristy and I are classmates and wanted to fly together, so we chose a trip with 2 open positions. We also brought a lot of food to share in order to save money and provide a little more variety for us. I shared my roommate’s Chicken Gunk Casserole and my barbecue pork with fried okra. She shared her delicious Black Bean and Corn Salad and even made mouth-watering Banana Pudding!! I will have to ask them if I can post these recipes sometime. You’ll love it!! I’ll also later explain how to best store and pack these foods. For now, I wanted to reflect on the possible end of an era…

It seems, we are one of the last US major airlines to have our pilots run the same trips as the flight attendants (FAs). Because of our merger into the new American Airlines, change is happening – and quickly. The pilots are supposed to start running their own trips and sometimes staying at their own hotels – separate from the FAs. I thought this was supposed to happen earlier this year, but it hasn’t yet across the board. Many crew members are guilty of the “slam & click” – myself included when I’m too tired to socialize.

The last night of our trip, we got to the hotel around 2215 (that’s 10:15 pm – we use the military time clock) and all met downstairs in the restaurant after we checked into our rooms and changed clothes. Our captain mentioned he didn’t know the last time he had dinner with his entire crew and that this was very unusual – in a great way, of course! Kristy and I looked at each other and said, “Well, if you fly with us, we MAKE everybody get together whether you want to or not!” We all laughed and shared one of the best final moments with our entire crew!