Day in the Life

Ever wonder what a real trip is like for an airline pilot? Here is a typical day in the life of a pilot, which provides play-by-play details of life for a professional pilot. The information is genuine and logged by a pilot from a real trip she took around the country. This editorial examines a four-day trip flown by ExpressJet Airlines EMB145 Captain Kate Ryder. Below, you will see the schedule as planned for the crew and details of her experiences while flying the line. As you will witness, this profession is quite dynamic and the planning is down to every last minute.

A four-day trip with Captain Kate Ryder

Trip Pairing that displays each leg of the four-day trip (click for a larger view)

 

The Commute to Work
Sun. 12/9

9:00 a.m. (Eastern) Today, I started a four-day trip with a show time in Houston of 1:35 p.m. Much like the majority of airline pilots, I commute to work from a city other than my base, or hub city. Normally if you don’t live close to where you're based you are considered a commuter and get to work by jumpseating on an airline. I live in Florida. Therefore, I have to start earlier so that I can make it to work on time and also meet our pilot’s commuter guidelines, which at ExpressJet is to leave myself two flights to get me to Houston, TX, (IAH) no less than 30 minutes before my show time. I log on to my home computer and look at the available flights and find two that will meet the requirement to get me to work. I picked a 9:05 a.m. departure and was able to get on the flight. Another pilot who was also commuting to work was able to make it too. Typically when there are empty seats in the main cabin, they all become available to pilots commuting to work as jumpseats. When all cabin seats are full with passengers then the cockpit jumpseat is typically the last chance for getting to work on that flight.

The Crew Room

10:30 a.m. (Central) I arrived in IAH four hours before my first flight so I spent the time updating my Jeppesen charts, which are used for navigation and have updates sent to the crew room every two weeks. I also checked our company website for any operational changes, grabbed a bite to eat, read, and watched TV in the crew room, which is like a holding area for pilots between flights. Typically a crew room is located below the main terminal area in an airport and has several computers for checking schedules and flight information, several recliners for the occasional nap to catch up on rest, and a TV to watch weather and news.

Day One
Sun. 12/9

1:45 p.m. (Central) I got the paperwork for our flight to Baton Rouge, LA, (BTR) and noticed I had a different first officer (F/O) for the flight than originally planned. Re-checking my schedule, I saw that I had one reserve F/O for the BTR turn and then another reserve F/O for the remainder of the trip. Our arriving aircraft (a/c) was about 10 minutes late and our flight attendant jumpseat needed some maintenance, but we managed to get the flight out only three minutes late and made up the time enroute to BTR.

3:45 p.m. (Central) We did a quick turn in BTR with no problems. Some rain showers moved into IAH after we left so Air Traffic Control (ATC) center implemented an enroute spacing program, which gave us a 20 minute delay on our taxi out. We went to the end of the runway and shutdown the engines to conserve fuel until it was our turn to take off. Our aircraft has an Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) that provides electrical power and air-conditioning when the engines are shut down. The APU also provides the high pressure air to start the engines. Once airborne, the rest of the flight went smoothly.

5:40 p.m. (Central) When we landed in IAH, I had a message from crew scheduling on my cell phone saying my flight to Oklahoma City, OK, (OKC) was cancelled due to an ice storm, and I would be spending the night in IAH, then flying out early to OKC to continue our pairing. Scheduling uses either the crew member's cell phone or an on board text messaging system in the cockpit to inform pilots of a schedule change. My original F/O was done with his trip upon return to IAH so he left for home.

7:10 p.m. (Central) The flight attendant (F/A) and I finally arrived at the hotel after waiting for the hotel van for 25 minutes. Then, after a long ride due to all the stops along the way picking up other crews and passengers from the adjacent terminals we had a 35 minute van ride. I went to bed early because we had a 5:30 a.m. van the next morning.

Day Two
Mon. 12/10

5:30 a.m. (Central) The morning didn’t start off too well because the hotel didn’t have any hot water. The flight attendant and I met downstairs for the van and unfortunately, there were about 25 people trying to get into an eight-person van. Usually hotels transport flight crews first, but this one left three crews behind, including us. About this time, crew scheduling called me to let us know our OKC flight had once again been cancelled due to ongoing ice storms. Our new schedule was modified again, this time to deadhead, which is airline talk for “flying on the airplane for repositioning,” meaning you fly in the back rather than in the cockpit, on the 8 a.m. flight to EWR (Newark, NJ) and then pick up our originally scheduled 1:15 p.m. flight to BWI (Baltimore, MD). The F/A and I would meet our new F/O in EWR.

7:30 a.m. (Central) We boarded our flight after grabbing breakfast at the airport. Both of us were given middle seats for the three-hour flight, which is less than the ideal, but just a part of the job. At least there was a movie playing.

12:45 p.m. (Eastern) The flight to EWR went well, but we got long vectors, meaning we were given extended headings to fly before we were cleared for the approach. This is generally done to provide additional separation for aircraft when the airspace becomes congested and today contributed to us arriving 15 minutes late. By the time we got off the Boeing 767 aircraft, we had less than 15 minutes to get our flight out for BWI.

1:15 p.m. (Eastern) We made it to the gate, but our inbound flight was late. Once it did arrive we got the BWI flight out pretty quick, and because we missed our original departure time, we also missed the afternoon traffic departing EWR. The flight went smoothly and upon arriving in BWI, the F/A let me know a passenger seat would not stay upright. So while the F/O and F/A got the crew bags off the a/c and cleaned up, I called maintenance and MEL’d the seat for the outbound flight to CLE (Cleveland, OH). The term MEL, is technical talk for having a non-critical item noted and marked for resolution by maintenance at a later time.

2:50 p.m. (Eastern) We got on the van to go to the hotel, which was in downtown BWI.

3:15 p.m. (Eastern) We got to the hotel and checked in. Our rooms were in another tower of the hotel so we had to walk outside and across a parking lot to get there. Unfortunately, we were right across the street from a fire station, hoping it would not disturb our sleep. Because the hotel restaurant was closed, we walked down the street to grab an early dinner. Our van ride was at 5:20 a.m. the next morning, so we all went to bed early.

Day Three
Tue. 12/11

5:20 a.m. (Eastern) The crew met for our very early van ride. We got to the airport and headed straight for the aircraft, not enough time to stop and wait for breakfast.

6:30 a.m. (Eastern) We got out of BWI without any problems. It was a nice flight to CLE and we arrived 15 minutes early. When we pulled up to the gate, the ground personnel connected ground power to the aircraft and we shut down our engines. As the passengers were getting off the aircraft, someone outside knocked off the ground power, which sent the aircraft into an electrical power problem. We called maintenance for some engine oil as well as to straighten out the electrical issue.

8:00 a.m. (Eastern) We got off the aircraft in CLE and had a three-hour layover before our next flight. I got breakfast, read the paper, and took a quick nap in the crew room.

10:15 a.m. (Eastern) I got the paperwork for the flight and headed to the a/c. We had an MEL on the aircraft, which required us to take a weight penalty. Because we had several children onboard we were able to take all passengers, bags, and a jumpseater. The flight got out early and went smoothly to LGA (LaGuardia, NY).

12:40 p.m. (Eastern) In LGA while we got paperwork and prepared the flight for departure, the gate agent boarded all passengers. The problem was that we had too much weight on the aircraft and our maximum landing weight was limiting the payload we could load, so in attempt to not take off passengers, I called dispatch to get us filed for a lower altitude so we would burn more fuel allowing us to take on more weight in passengers and baggage. The plan worked and we were able to take everyone.

1:10 p.m. (Eastern) After clearing up our weight and balance issue, we finally left the gate for CLE. Enroute, ATC really helped us out with keeping us on our filed route at the lower altitude. We were keeping an eye on the weather in CLE because the visibility was decreasing. I began the approach into CLE, but ATC had high winds in the area so aircraft spacing was getting closer than they had planned so they pulled us off the approach. Because fuel was a concern I talked to dispatch to get a closer alternate airport while we got vectors back around for another approach. Fortunately, the second approach went fine and we got into CLE.

3:20 p.m. (Eastern) We made it to the gate, but because of having to do two approaches we were running late. I went to go get paperwork at our operations desk below the main concourse, and when I returned to the a/c I found that the fuelers had over-fueled us by 700 lbs, this poses a problem because the added weight reduces the amount of passengers and cargo we can carry. I let operations know that we might have a weight restriction due to the increased fuel load and not to load all passengers until I did some calculations. Fortunately, we had a small amount of baggage, so all passengers made the flight.

3:45 p.m. (Eastern) We pushed off the gate for Bradley, CT, (BDL), and during our taxi out to the runway we could see the weather quickly deteriorating in CLE. We were happy to get right out with no problems. Arriving in BDL, we were a little heavy for landing, so we asked ATC some delay vectors and burned off some fuel weight quickly. The approach into BDL went fine and we arrived at the gate only 10 minutes late.

5:45 p.m. (Eastern) The van picked us and another crew who had deadheaded on our flight from CLE. The drive was about 20 minutes long, so by the time we arrived at the hotel I was very hungry (not having a break since 9 a.m.). The only food available was at the hotel restaurant, so I ordered some to go. Once again, we had an early van ride so we went to bed early.

Day Four
Wed. 12/12

6:00 a.m. (Eastern) The crew met at the van on time, but a passenger was several minutes late, so when we got to the airport we did not have time for breakfast.

7:00 a.m. (Eastern) We got out one minute late to EWR because of maintenance issues. The plane was all boarded and as we started the Auxiliary Power Unit (APU), it failed and sent the aircraft into an electrical emergency mode, which basically means we have to call maintenance and reset the plane. After contacting maintenance, they had us shut down the aircraft so we had to start over programming the flight and getting the aircraft ready to go.

8:10 a.m. (Eastern) Our flight time to EWR was scheduled to be 45 minutes, but it took us one hour and six minutes because of delays due to bad weather in EWR.

8:30 a.m. (Eastern) Even though we got in late, we did a quick turnaround and got the flight out to Kansas City, MO, (MCI) a few minutes early. The taxi to the runway took about 40 minutes. On our climb out of EWR, we encountered icing and had our engine anti-ice bleeds fail (fortunately open). The bleed system is a pneumatic system that uses hot compressed air from the engine to power, among other things, the pressurization and anti-ice systems of the aircraft. We got out of icing quickly, began to troubleshoot the problem, and called maintenance via SELCAL, an in-flight phone system used to talk with our company personnel, while we continued to MCI. The rest of the flight went well.

10:00 a.m. (Eastern) Enroute to MCI and cruising at 36,000 ft., we had a 125kt (144 mph) direct headwind, and we still had two hours and 15 minutes left to go. The flight did have breakfast so we each got a small bowl of cereal.

11:30 a.m. (Central) Due to the 125kt headwind, which is like paddling upstream in a canoe, we ended up being 30 minutes late. In MCI, we had a scheduled sit and aircraft swap. Sit time is just a scheduled waiting time for your next flight, typically spent sitting around. I grabbed a quick bite to eat, then went to meet our inbound aircraft, which was 15 minutes late.

12:35 p.m. (Central) We got out of MCI only five minutes late and on our way to IAH without any problems. Once up at cruising altitude, I checked the weather in IAH, which at the time showed heavy rain showers on the field. We were slowed down by ATC a little enroute and made it into IAH 20 minutes late.

2:50 p.m. (Central) Once getting off the plane, we all said goodbye and headed off for our various commutes home. My flight home was scheduled to leave in one hour and 20 minutes so I had a chance to grab a quick bite to eat.

The Commute Home
Wed. 12/12

4:25 p.m. (Central) I filled out the jumpseat paperwork and asked the captain working the flight for the privilege of jumpseating on his flight. He was happy to help me out and there were no problems getting home. I made it on the commute home to JAX (Jacksonville, FL) and got a seat in the back as opposed to occupying the cockpit jumpseat. I slept the entire flight home and got in at 7:45 p.m. Eastern.

Actual Pairing of the Trip after Completion

Final results that displays each leg of the four-day trip (click for a larger view)