1. A crew really does make or break a trip! I worked a hellacious three day trip, but at least I worked with amazing people who were in it with me. (a couple opportunities for bloody marys didn’t hurt either)

2. Reserve flight attendants really do need better protection and sick call rules than line holders. I didn’t have any reserves on this trip, and I was the most junior on it, but I was reminded of being a reserve. We flew into Portland early Monday, slept all day intending to fly out that night working the red eye to Newark only to wake up and find out the flight canceled (this is were the bloody marys came in) But, now we were supposed to be able to go back to sleep after sleeping all day! This is an all too common occurrence for reserve flight attendants. Scheduling jerks them around without any concern to whether they have been on a night or a day schedule or only had minimum rest the night before….and the night before that! When I got home from my three day, five hours late, I was barely “legal” for my trip the next day….only I was in fact “legal”. I knew scheduling was still extremely short handed so I didn’t want to leave any one high and dry. I called scheduling and explained that because of having had minimum rest the night before and not feeling well I needed more than five hours of sleep* in order to fly again the next day. I requested that she either change my trip for a later check in or provide a hotel room near the airport. The sarcasm in her voice when she said, “Ah no” and no” was the same that used to make me cry when I was on  reserve…but not this time. “Ok, I’m just letting you know I don’t feel well and I will have to see how I feel in the morning, I may have to call out sick…thank you.” Yes, we do have a contract that dictates minimum rest periods, but I’ve always thought it’s the airlines inability to treat crew members like people and not robots is the root of a lot of sick calls.

3. Bad (not all) gate agents treat flight attendants as bad as they treat passengers. Some gate agents don’t like flight attendants, it’s no secret. They think we’re the prima donnas of the airline. When other employees such as cleaners, ramp agents, and gate agents see us, they see us “resting” while they are working.  I think that’s were that perception comes from. Also, the airlines kind of pit us against each other. When there is a delay the company wants to know was it inflight or the agents delay? Anyway, when we finally did make it to Newark we headed to a hotel forty five minutes away which cut into our rest and after a few short hours headed back to the airport to “dead head” (ride as a passenger). We arrived at the gate to find the aftermath of the blizzard. It was Wednesday, but there was still a ton of back up. Our flight had thirty five revenue passengers and thirty five non-revs (employees.) A lot of the employees were positive space or “must rides” which was the case with us. You can imagine how stressful it is for the agents to tell paying passengers they’re putting crew members on ahead of them. Yikes! But, there were so many displaced crews that they needed to get us there to operate our flights. When my lead flight attendant checked in with the agent, she nearly bit her head off and told her, “unless I get thirty five volunteers, you’re not going anywhere!!” To which she replied, “Ok, just letting you know we are here because I have to. Thank you.” We called crew coordination who in turn called the agents, who in turn proceeded to give out seats to everyone on my crew except myself and the first officer. We reminded them we were still there and were told to wait a minute. Once the door closed, we asked what we should do? Could they roll us to the next flight? The agent that was rude to the first flight attendant now jumped down our throats and said she called our names…where were we? Ahhhh, no I don’t think so since we had been standing there at the gate from the time the agents opened up the flight. Oh well, no need to get into an argument, we called crew coordination once again and were then booked on the next flight. We arrived two hours after the first flight and I thought I would have been replaced and on my way home….oh noooo…they were so short handed they actually waited for me! That’s the nature of my job, you never know what your day will bring. The highlight of the day was when I walked up to the gate and the passengers started cheering and clapping for me!

4. Scheduling doesn’t care if you’re a line holder or a reserve. Once they have their “hands” on you…watch out! (see #2)

5. 99% of the traveling public are awesome and roll with the punches! It was amazing to me (although it shouldn’t be I see it all the time) how nice everyone was despite the long delays they had already had and were currently experiencing. I can’t tell you how many people thanked me for being there on my Chicago turn after waiting for me for two hours!

*minimum rest is block to block which means from the time the aircraft door opens (plus debrief time, about 15 more minutes depending on the airline)  until the aircraft door closes for your next departure. That means when my flight got to the gate at 12:40am, block time became 12:55am and I was supposed to be back for a 9:50am check in, but rest includes the hour before departure. So, I had 10 hours “block to block” Now, I needed to get out of the airport, wait for a van, drive thirty minutes home (arriving at almost 2am) and would need to be up at 7am in order to leave my house at 8am to get to work on time. Hmmmm…that would give me five hours of sleep if I hit the pillow and fell asleep instantly (lets not forget about changing into pajamas, washing your face and brushing your teeth) and forget about saying good morning to your family. I guess this could have been #6 Minimum crew rest is not long enough!