TheNewGazmo

Had the 'Rona for what I believe was the first time about two months ago. First signs were ear infection type symptoms with a low-grade fever (99ish) by late night. Tested and was negative. Had a hard time sleeping between sweats and chills. The next day I felt weak, exhausted with chills every once in a while. Took Nyquil that night to sleep. Day 2.25, felt noticably better without fever, but then felt tired again by night time. Day 3, felt exhausted again with a mild fever again. All symptoms were controlled alternating Tylenol and Advil. Decided to test again; positive. Day 4, felt like a million bucks with no symptoms. Never really got a cough. Symptoms never came back. My wife's parents both got it on Day 3 and Day 6, assuming from me, and were over it in about 3-4 days as well. My FiL is 86. Overall, I have felt worse with some colds and the flu.

At least it wasn't an airliner....

When I got hired with the airlines, it took everything in me to not let my "military-TypeA-try to fix everything" mentality get the best of me. Just let it ride... you get paid by the minute.

Summer weather, higher PAX loads, more flights, ATC saturation, manning shortfalls, etc... stuff that happens every summer, but I suppose the manning shortfalls are compounding the issues.

Yes; this is exactly what they are doing. Trust me; management is smarter than we are. No. Other than flying our contract, there's not much the pilot group can do. I keep hearing that we need to stop picking up open time/premium. LOL!!! Yeah, like that's going to happen when people are making tens of, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars per year picking up premium. The "stick it to the company" is just not happening across the pilot group because this industry drives a "feast or famine/get it while you can" attitude. Tomorrow may not be as lucrative.

I remember them firing them off at Kandyland as well. Always made me wonder what we were actually shooting at.

Everyone can picket all they want, but with the impending recession predicted to begin Q2 of 2023, all these companies have to do is drag their feet 6-8 more months before the ball is back in their court and our bargaining power will be next to ZERO just like it was during COVID. Business travel will drop, layoffs will ensue, vacations will drop, etc. People will run out of their COVID-Cash soon. The only thing in our favor is that retirements will still be in full swing.

I got ROPMA promoted to O-5 without PME. It is fairly common if you've got OPR's on the stronger side. IP/EP-types who are assigned to some sort of SQ job (ADO, Flt/CC, etc) and/or filled a deployed leadership position once or twice shouldn't have an issue. My unit was notorious for years for taking everyone to ROPMA; even O-3's with SOS done, which is why I took my chances without PME. I was presented with a position vacancy when I was a full-timer, but I was so burnt out there was no way I was doing ACSC to entertain leadership. Now depending on your ROPMA date, the unit can accelerate your promotion to 1 Oct. You already appear to be aligned with fiscal year so it won't matter.

Each company has different guidelines on what "probation" is and when you are removed from it. It is normally a year, but I believe you can be removed from probation if you fly more than X-amount of hours as well. Most prefer you get through OE and consolidation before you drop mil leave. Of course if you are going to be one of these guys that drops mil leave for two years shortly after being hired so you can chase an AD retirement, they can't do much about that, but I can't imagine they think highly of it. When most of our reserve pilots are crediting 80+ hours a month, we are hiring pilots for a reason; because we need them NOW.

That is superb!

What kind of drones are these that they're dropping these bowling pin type bombs from?

These days, there is quite a bit of premium being handed out. A lot of them are trips that pop up last minute they don't have the short-call coverage for (because they're ripping through their reserve list like crazy). The closer you live, the more opportunities you have to pick this stuff up in open time, if you so choose. Some of them are day turns; one leg out and one back for almost 8 hours of pay on premium. That's almost $1,300 for me for a pretty easy, enjoyable day at work. The pilots who commute by air or even commute 1.5-2 hrs by car don't always get to take advantage of some of these trips because of their inability to pick these up with minimum notification time. On the flipside, if you don't want to work on your days off, but live close, you can bid those 1-day/2-day trips that commuters don't want and most likely get them even if you are on the junior side. They'd rather get the 3-day/4-day trips to maximize their time at work and minimize their commuting. 4-day trips can be exhausting if you get one with a lot of legs and early sign-in's. 2-day trips for me are great especially if I can grab them with long layovers (in nice places). A transcon to LAX with 20+ hours in Redondo Beach doesn't suck (followed by 3-4 days off). By the time I'm ready to divorce my wife and/or beat my children, I'm packing for another trip.... I keed... I keed...

But unless you bid domestic equipment (A300, 757/767, etc), can you have a similar schedule living in-base with FedEx or UPS?

Just under 4 years. Live in base out of Philadelphia on the AB. Movement has been pretty insane on the FO side the past 6 months. I've moved about 25%.

Reason #1 for not going to FedEx/UPS: Commuting Reason #2: I fly mainly 2-day trips. Mostly trancons. 1 night gone, at least 3 nights home. 16-18 days off a month and usually end up crediting 85-90 hrs. I am away from home about 6 nights per month at AAL. I don't think you could do that at a box hauler. I don't mind PAX and walking through airports. It's all part of the "exitement". FA's are whatever. Some are cool, some aren't. If you can manage to fight the urge to get unprofessional, there should be nothing to worry about. It is very rare we hang out with FA's and if we do it is usually with the old-school ones that aren't looking for trouble anyway.

Pilot error.... who'd a thunk? I guess teaching the phrase, "My aircraft" doesn't exist in AF's training program.

Or.... Summer of 2001.

AAL's 2022 Hiring Stats so far.

The military took backseat when the commercial airline industry boomed in the 1970's and it hasn't been the same since. Now we get whatever obsolete, cookie-cutter platform Boeing can put on the table. They know where the money is.

Nickname.... The Wedgie.

Not sure why we're always stroking Boeing off.

I am sure all self-proclaimed non-douches are eagerly waiting.

There may not be a "shortage" of applicants, but I did hear through the grape vine from someone who knows someone in pilot recruiting of one of the "big guys" that they are seeing less and less "qualified" applicants.

It is like that in EVERY jet I have flown from Boeing, to Airbus to Embraer. Must be a standard.

737's had a rash of bad PCU's in the 90's I believe.