My First Airline Milestone

I've written a lot of stories in the last several months about life as an airline pilot.  In this entry, however, I will stray away from some of the fun stories and more into my progression into the next step of my dream.

When I changed my blog title from "Chasing a Dream" to "Living a Dream," many of you might have thought that this was the end of the road.  It is an important, but far from the last step along my journey to the rest of my career.  Someday, I'd like to work for a Delta or American Airlines flying passengers to exotic international locations.  Unfortunately, you have to start as the low man on the outsourced totem pole first.  So, this is my career progression report card.  

What does it take to become a "Major Airline" pilot?  Well, I'm glad you asked.  I wish it were as simple as, "be awesome" as my friend Rich Young would say.  There is certain minimum criteria and competitive criteria:

Minimum Criteria                                                          Competitive Criteria

Total Time: 1500 Hours                                                        Total Time: 4000 Hours

Jet Time: 1000 FO Hours                                                      Jet Time: 1000 Captain Hours

College: Bachelor's Degree                                                    College: Master's Degree

Other:  ATP License                                                             Other: Community Service

                                                                                                    Instructor/Evaluator

                                                                                                    Military Flight Time Bonus

                                                                                                    Other Leadership Experience

                                                                                                    Internal Recommendations

As you can see above, there is what they say they are looking for and what they are actually looking for.  Many might wonder why, with the looming pilot shortage, such a difference exists between competitive criteria and minimum criteria.  The minimum criteria is just that.  Insurance requirements for each carrier dictates what the absolute minimum time you must have to fly their airplanes.  Because major airlines' airplanes are larger and more complex, the insurance companies require more experience to fly for them.  The competitive criteria, though, is higher because of the decade long stagnation created following September 11, 2001.  The major carriers like United, Delta, and American did not hire for over a decade while many pilots remained on furlough status.  Until every single pilot who was on furlough was given the chance to return to active status, the airlines were not permitted to hire.  The last of the pilots were given class dates at the end of last year, opening the flood gates for the largest hiring boom since the end of the Vietnam War.  Consequently, since many people were not hired for more than a decade, combined with rampant expansion of regional carriers, there remains a large amount of highly experienced pilots to compete with. 

So, where does that leave me?  In the middle of July, I hit my first milestone of 500 Jet hours.  This is almost half way to hiring minimums and I figure it will take me about 6-7 more months of steady flying to get the minimum required 1000 hours.  Unfortunately, at my company, it takes a minimum of 3000 total hours to upgrade to Captain.  As of this post, I have 2130 total hours.  Below is how I compare to the minimum times.

 Minimum Criteria                            Competitive Criteria                 Me             Next Milestone ETA 

Total Time:  1500 Hours                   4000 Hours                           2130           3000: August 2015

Jet Time:     1000 FO Hours              1000 Captain Hours               500 FO        1000 FO: Feb 2015

College:       Bachelor's Degree          Master's Degree                     Master's

Other:         ATP License                  Community Service               Some

                                                      Instructor/Evaluator               No              Earliest: 2016-2017  

                                                      Military Flight Time Bonus      N/A

                                                      Other Leadership Experience   Former Military/USAFA Grad

                                                       Internal Recommendations     Contacts at Delta/United 

There you have it folks.  As you can see, I am only 6 months short of being eligible to get hired.  Unfortunately, as you can see, if I am to be competitive purely on qualitative factors, I have quite a ways to go.  It is my hope that my connections at various airlines combined with a possible large bump being an Air Force Academy graduate/former military officer will push me to the top of the pile when compared to those without.  We will all know this spring how much weight being a military academy graduate with connections holds with the hiring boards.

My Logbook with all the things I track near the bottom of the screen

Death and Decay in the Midwest

In the summer of 2001, I visited the US Air Force Academy for a baseball camp  It wasn't the first time flying alone but surely it was the most memorable for a variety of reasons.  One such reason dealt with the trip to Colorado Springs.  I was dropped off at Akron/Canton Regional Airport a short 10 minutes from my home.  I walked into the old 1970s style, dingy brick building to board my flight to Cleveland.  As long as I could remember, jet service at Akron/Canton was sparse and today would be no different.  The single-story terminal was devoid of jetbridges and any boarding was done by walking onto the ramp and climbing the stairs to the tiny prop airplanes.  My dad called them mosquitos in reference to their sound, relative size and annoyance as they flew low over our house day after day.

The sun had just begun to rise in its attempt to burn off the low hanging clouds found over northeast Ohio on most late spring days.  By the time I deplaned in Cleveland, it was sunny and clear.  I walked on the ramp again into the newly constructed D-Concourse and was met with shadowy cinderblock hallways that lead to the main terminal.  When I finally made it to the top of the stairs to the second story of the main terminal, I was struck by fascination.  The rising sun shined brightly in my face through the massive wall of windows on the opposite side of the terminal.  Unlike most of the older airports I'd been to this was unlike anything I'd ever seen.  Glass stretched from the floor to the opening of the rectangular cornicopia as far as you could see in any direction.  I walked along the invisible wall to the escalator to take me to the spectacular underground walkway and before I descended, I noticed the destinations: Myrtle Beach, Charleston, New Orleans.  It seemed like every airplane leaving this part of the airport was going to some vacation destination.  This must be the vacation terminal, my under-developed mind mused.

In June, with the announcement that United was dehubbing, the $110 Million terminal closed forever.  It is the first airport to ever have been dehubbed by the same company twice.


For most, spending any time in an airport is a miserable experience.  It is a reminder of missed connections, angry crowds and an inherent feeling of being at the whim of some faceless company.   To them, all airports are the same whether they are large or small and are merely places to anxiously await your next flight.

People often think I'm weird when I tell them I love airports and always have.  Some sarcastically joke that it's a good thing I became a pilot.  "Well, you'll be spending a lot of time in them" they tease.  I love seeing how unique and different each airport is and how they've reacted to the changing airline industry.  Some create finger-like terminals that stretch in every direction (Old Detroit Metro, Memphis, Cleveland, St Louis).  Others built underground or above ground trains to house a completely remote "airside" terminal (Pittsburgh, Tampa, Cincinnati, Orlando) and others have moved the entire airport away from the city like in Denver or have constructed whole new terminals at a different location on the airport grounds (New Detroit Metro, Hartford, Raleigh-Durham).

While the new architecture is fascinating, so is the unchanged look of the smaller airports in the south.  Greenville-Spartanburg in South Carolina, built in the 1960s, has changed very little.  It's massive concrete walls and thirty-foot ceilings is a throw-back to the golden days of air travel.  They are massive, maze-like cathedrals of aviation.  It seems to take longer to get to your gate there than in a place like Chicago.

Unfortunately, the 2000s were not kind to the once booming airline industry and especially unkind to the areas hit the hardest by recession and a post-industrial economy, also known as the "Rust Belt."  USAir, hubbed and headquartered in Pittsburgh, expanded rapidly.  In the early-90s, Pittsburgh partnered with now USAirways and built a multi-billion dollar terminal featuring the first "Airmall" with over 100 shoppes at the center of the terminal complex.  It was designed to be a global gateway for the booming hometown airline.  Not more than a decade later, the airline declared bankruptcy and moved its hub operations to Philadelphia.  The bills for the new terminal were overwhelming and its contract with the city was terminated by the bankruptcy court.  While other operators like Southwest have moved in and added flights, the airport has not recovered.  Whole sections of the once bustling airside terminal have been closed off.  Many of the 100 shoppes have been boarded up and the terminal, on most days, is a ghost town.

The longest parts of the bottom two terminals have been boarded up

Cincinnati has experienced a similar fate.  With Delta Airlines booming, Cincinnati was Delta's 2nd largest hub prior to its merger with Northwest Airlines.  The airport built a new remote terminal with three remote concourses to house the massive Delta operation to include a remote concourse that housed the now defunct regional airline, Comair.  Following the merger, Detroit was picked to survive and Cincy was placed on the chopping block.  Now, terminals 1 and 2 as well as the remote concourse C of terminal 3 that housed the regional jet operation have been boarded up and remain completely vacant.  While Delta does maintain a small hub, the operation has gone from over 600 flights per day to less than 140.  I flew through many of these hub airports when going back and forth from school in Colorado.

Terminals 1, 2 and Concourse C are closed permanently and remain vacant and deteriorating

When I have to wait in places like Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and Cleveland, instead of hiding in a corner like most pilots, I explore.  I walk to areas that once housed busy gates and to newly constructed false-walls that, behind them, house thousands of square-feet of unused terminal.

My last story is from my new hometown airport of St Louis-Lambert.  As a reserve pilot, I often had to spend 10 hours a day sitting in the bowels of the airport on "airport reserve."  Should a need for a pilot come up, I'm there to the rescue in a matter of minutes.  As that need is rare, instead of hiding in the concrete dungeon that is our crew room, I get out and explore.  In the 90s, St Louis was a massive  and important airport.  It housed the operations of Trans World Airlines, one of the largest and most successful airlines of the 20th century.  In 1985, St Louis built a brand new terminal for Ozark Airlines.  A year later, the two companies merged making St Louis the largest hub in the TWA system.  Due to mismanagement, however, American Airlines performed a hostile takeover of TWA in the early 2000s, liquidating much of its assets, and reducing St Louis traffic by more than three quarters.  The D-Concourse, built for Ozark Airlines, is now completely closed to passengers but open to crew and employees.  I often take time during my 10-hours of airport appreciation to explore the ghost airport.

All of Concourse D, the entire arm, is closed.

Long-removed advertisements on carpeted walls

All the extra chairs hide out here.  The terminal was reopened for a year after the C Concourse was nearly destroyed by a tornado in 2008...hence the LCD departures and arrivals board.

 Plaque commemorating the opening of the D Concourse

The now barren hallways of a dusty and dirty once packed concourse

The remains of a food court now hold storage for the remaining food vendors

From along the back wall, the moving walkways are silent and gates long-ago vacant.  

Battling Giants

Night has settled on the Windy City of Chicago.  For the first time since I began this job, walking outside is rather pleasant if not a little humid.  Spring is here and it brings a bit of relief from the stress of winter: the low visibility, the snow, and the bitter cold.  The relief, though, is short-lived.

"What does it say," I ask the Captain after he returns to the airplane following our short trip from St. Louis.

Frustrated, he tosses the paperwork between us and exclaims, "How the hell am I supposed to tell?  They give us 25 minutes to review this 60 page behemoth of a dispatch release.  Am I supposed to plot the thunderstorms by hand?  That could take hours."

Winter is gone but spring has arrived with a vengeance.  This is the latest in the spring season that an EF-3 or greater tornado has failed to develop according to The Weather Channel.   A massive subtropical system has formed just east of the Rockies and severe weather now stretches from the Dakotas to Southern Texas.  Tornado watches and warnings have been popping up all day but anything serious has yet to materialize. The National Weather Service and The Weather Channel agree.  Tornados will form and they have a high likelihood of being deadly.

"Hang on," I tell him as I grab my equally ridiculous smartphone and open my favorite radar app.  Being a meteorologist could come in handy today.   "Looks like there are a few cells left just west of St Louis.  They appear to be dissipating but, depending on how high we get, still might not be able to get over them."

"We're filed at 3-6-0.  That should be plenty high enough, you think?" he says "confidently."

"It could be but some of those storms had tops in excess of 45,000 feet not more than 3 hours ago when I left my apartment.  Surely some of them will still be above us.  This isn't a convective storm, it's frontal.  I'd bet this thing still packs a punch through the night."  The Captain looks out the window in contemplation as I pick up the flight plan and begin to program the computer.  "Did they really file us over Memphis?  There was a hole there when we left St Louis but that's the northern edge of the most severe line now.  No way man."

"Let me see that radar," he says as he grabs my phone.  For whatever reason, he still owns a flip.  "Okay, well, once we check on with Center, let's ask for direct St Louis if they don't give us a reroute before."

The banter goes back and forth as we begin to make a contingency plan for our last leg to Oklahoma City.  It's the first day of a 4 day trip and it isn't starting out great. Once we leave the ground, I won't have the luxury of my "state-of-the-art" phone to show me the weather; I'll have to rely on an onboard radar with technology older than most college graduates.  It's helpful but it'd be like driving your car in reverse down a busy city street using only your review camera.  In other words, the clarity is poor, and the blind spots are many.  Unless the weather is directly in front of us, there's no way to see it.

****

Checking on with Chicago Center, we were issued a reroute before I even got a chance to ask.  Just as we had planned, they were sending us direct to St Louis instead of the more southerly route where most of the severe weather was.  Climbing through 18000 feet, the flight was still pretty bumpy but by cruise, it had mostly smoothed out.  Normally this would be comforting except within minutes of leveling off, we become surrounded by clouds.  We've entered the cirrus shield. 

Downwind of most thunderstorms exists a layer of clouds that gets "blown off" the top of a system.  In a small system, this shield can present itself as an anvil-shaped cloud.  In more massive systems, high clouds get blown hundreds of miles down range.  If you've ever heard your grandma say that the wispy clouds indicate storms are coming, they aren't entirely incorrect.  Those wisps are the remnants of the cirrus shield that we were entering.  

As a pilot, this shield presents certain challenges.  The benefit of jet aircraft over prop aircraft is that we are often capable of getting over the weather.  If you can't get over it, you can usually just go around it.  The primary method for avoidance?  Seeing it.    Now that we've entered the clouds, we have to rely on our radar or air traffic control.  As it turns out, air traffic control is far less useful than I thought they'd be.  "Waterski (our callsign), a line of moderate to extreme precipitation from your 10 o'clock to your 3 o'clock in 5-0 miles.  Advise me if you need to deviate left or right."  In other words, acceptable yet uncomfortable and unacceptable conditions exist in every direction you are trying to go.

The Captain acknowledges the warning and ask, "Do you have a best route through it?"  

"Unfortunately no.  You are the first one to fly this route this evening.  I have no reports within 20,000 feet of your altitude.  If you could, please let me know what you find so I can advise the guys behind you."  Great.  We are the guinea pig.   

I speak up, "well, it looks like the worst of it is to the south.  What if we go about 10 degrees to the left get around to get around the southern edge of that guy and then bend it around to the north to get around the rest," I say pointing at my onboard radar.  There was a gap there when we left Chicago and, while it is closing, there still appears to be a gap."

The Captain agreed and ATC approved our request as we slowly banked the airplane left and right to avoid the weather.  The silence on the radio and in the airplane was deafening.  Occasionally the airplane rattled as we entered small pockets of turbulence. And then the clouds began to light up.  Above us and around us, every few seconds, lightning filled our cockpit.  Between bumps, I'd look out the window and an even more unsettling sight appeared, St Elmo's Fire.  Passing through areas of charged air has caused our windshield to come alive with electrical tentacles, moving like a sky kraken that has blocked our path.  

Then the occasional bumps turned continuous and began to worsen.  It was bordering on the edge of uncomfortable, and as soon as the lightning started to pick up, so did the turbulence.  The radios were beginning to turn to static.  "Waterski....shhhh....Center...shhhhh...3 point 5 shhhhh."  The static continued. 

"Did you hear what he said," the captain asked me.  I just shrugged and shook my head.  He had to ask several times to get the full message as the bumps continued to get worse. Checking on with the next controller proved to be equally difficult as checking off with the last.  As the last bit of yellow and red disappeared under the digital representation of our airplane, the bumps become more than uncomfortable.  

The computer screens in front of me, once a crisp, clear representation of every important detail of our airplane were fuzzy and unrecognizable.  The turbulence was making everything hard to read.  I looked down at the controls and watched the autopilot struggle to control the airplane.  I pulled the power back to slow the airplane so that the turbulence couldn't damage jet.  And then, with one swift violent bump, the autopilot gave up. "Autopilot....Autopilot...Autopilot,"  the computer calmly announced not quite conveying the urgency of the situation.  I grabbed the controls.  

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the captain look at me before he spoke.  "Did you do that?"

I chuckled.  "No.  I think the autopilot called it a day.  I'm pretty sure I just heard him say, 'fuck this, your airplane.'" I quipped as I now battled the bucking bronco. Within a few seconds, it was over.   "What do you think," I asked.  "Wanna give him another shot?" I asked the Captain.  He smiled and reached up to turn the autopilot back on.  

Wiping sweat from my brow, I leaned back in my seat and looked out the window.  The clouds were beginning to part and I could finally see the lights from the land below.  There was still an hour left in our flight but the worst was now behind us.  To the south, a lightning show performed like none I'd ever seen before.  The Captain and I watched in silence as the electrical storm lit up the towering giants not more than 100 miles to our left. Several lightning bolts flashed every second.  The streaks looked like the bulging white veins of an attacking monster as they arced from left to right and top to bottom.  It was incredible.  

****

 I landed the airplane without incident in Oklahoma City.  Once everyone had left, I pulled my bags out and put them in the jetbridge where 20 of the passengers were still awaiting their carry-ons.  Seeing everyone staring at me, I expected to get glares or snarky comments.  The weather had delayed us several hours and I had no doubt they were cranky.  Instead of just ignoring them, I figured I'd try a little levity to cut the tension. I smiled and said, "Well, I think we hit a few bumps up there.  You guys didn't feel it, did you?"

A man walked right up to me and put out his hand.  "Thank you so much for getting us here safely.  We really appreciate what you did tonight."  As I reached up to shake his outstretched hand, the rest of the people lining the walls of the jetbridge clapped.  Others chimed in with "good job" or "yeah, thanks a lot."  All I could do was thank the man.  Their sentiment had left me silenced and I hurried out the door to inspect the airplane.  In the entirety of my life, I'd never experienced such an overwhelming outpouring of gratitude.  It was beyond humbling.  

When I returned to the jetbridge, the crowd had already dispersed.  I gathered my bags and, with the flight attendant and the Captain, walked up into the terminal building.  As a result of being the last flight in for the night, it was completely empty.  A TV, tuned to The Weather Channel, played for no one.  As the Captain walked into the restroom, I stopped to watch for a second to see how powerful that storm that seemed so beautiful from the air looked like on radar.  Instead, all I saw was images of destruction.  Dozens of people were missing and buildings turned to rubble as a late night tornado ripped through Arkansas.  

Later, in my hotel room, I would come to find out that our passengers had been watching breaking news of the tornado sightings in northern Arkansas while the Captain and I were finishing up discussing our plan.  I can only imagine the fear and helplessness they felt as they knew we'd come very close to those storms on our route to Oklahoma City.  Once we were airborne, there was nothing they could do but hold on....

The April storm would end up producing 2014's first EF-4 tornado and took the lives of 15 people.  The devastation stretched along a 40 mile path just to the north of Little Rock, Arkansas. 

Here is a picture I took as we were approaching the storm.  You can see that it already started to get a little bumpy.

 Our path through the storm.  You can see the severe weather we passed through near St Louis and the tornadic cells to the east of Oklahoma.

A Day in the Life

Over the years, I've been abruptly jarred to consciousness by any number of sounds ranging from the trumpeting of Reveille and banging on doors to the gentle nudge of a parent.  Today, it's the soft sweeping sounds of an acoustic guitar coming from my cell phone that brings me out of the dream world to reality; from darkness to light.

As I stumble to the shower, my brain in boot-up mode, I glance at the time and pretend to comprehend.  It's 3:50 AM.  No matter what time I wake, my routine hasn't changed much since the Academy.  There's always some iteration of shower, breakfast and coffee.  Just before I leave the apartment a few miles west of St Louis, I stuff my cooler full of plastic containers, Cliff Bars, bagels and various other dry foods and snacks that I'd prepared the night before in anticipation of my 3-day trip.

With my car packed, I get in and check the time.  It's 4:30 AM.  It'll take me 30 minutes to drive to the parking lot, ride the bus, and walk through the airport to the gate where my airplane is sitting.  As planned, I'll arrive about 15 minutes before my scheduled check-in time of 5:15 AM.  The highway is nearly empty at this time of the morning, and even with the patchy fog, I manage to arrive earlier than planned.  Once I get off the bus at the terminal, I check my mail to see if any of the manuals need updated (for my missile friends, think T.O. changes).  Today there are none.

I leave the mailroom and walk toward the security checkpoint.  At this time of the morning, the line is long but I walk around to the back where there is a special crew checkpoint.  After my credentials are verified, I bypass security and make my way through the airport to gate where my airplane is parked.  Approaching the podium, I see that the flight is "On-Time" with a scheduled departure of 6:00 AM.  The boarding area is full of passengers and most look up and stare at me as I approach the door.  I can imagine some are sizing me up, trying to determine with a glance if I'm qualified for the task at hand.  Their empty looks make me want to smile and wave.  Instead, I walk to the door, input my code, and walk down the jetway to the airplane.  When I reach the end, it is clear that I'm the first one to work this morning because the airplane is completely dark and cold.  Well, time to get to work, I say to myself.

After stowing my bags, I hop into the front of the airplane and begin flipping switches and pushing buttons.  Have I ever mentioned how much I enjoy pushing buttons and turning switches?  Well, I do and there are plenty of good heavy buttons to push here.  I run through the power-up sequence or "flow" as we call it to bring the airplane to life.  I turn on the batteries, fuel pumps, lights, and do a quick Fire-Detection test.  On batteries, the airplane would go dark again in minutes so I reach up and start the auxiliary power unit (a mini jet engine in the tail of the airplane) to provide power and heat/air conditioning to the airplane.

Once everything is up and running, I grab my checklist and run outside to do the external inspection.  I shine my flashlight in the wheel wells, at the engines, on the wings, and various other places to ensure nothing is broken.  Once I make it all the way around, I walk underneath the terminal to grab the Release paperwork before heading back to the airplane.

Back in my seat, I glance at my watch.  There are still 45 minutes before departure so I take some time to scour through the aircraft documents.  This is where I review any deficiencies to the aircraft and verify that all required maintenance was completed.  Once I determine everything is signed-off and in order, I sign my name to the document saying that I am "accepting" the airplane.  The Captain will do the same thing once he arrives.  I'm not going to wait for him though.  The more I get done now, the more I can enjoy my coffee before we leave.  I pull out the Dispatch Release, a 50-page document with all the details for our flight, and look it over.  To the casual observer, it's completely cryptic.  There are letters and numbers seemingly smashed together in a nonsensical format.  To me, it's everything I could ever need and more.  It has routing, fuel planning, altitudes, weather, navigational aid outages, and so-on.

Since this is the first flight of the day for this airplane, I have to do extra tests and checks that I normally don't do if the airplane had been flying.  I test the auto-pilot for proper function and disconnection.  The stall detection system is checked and tested.  I run a few computer tests to ensure that all the sub-routines inside the Air Data and Inertial Reference Computers work correctly.  I check for all the required manuals, fire suppression systems, and safety equipment before finally getting back to preparing for this particular flight.

With the checks and tests complete, I start to configure the airplane for departure. I configure our anti-icing system appropriately and move on to configuring the environmental control systems.  The passengers have already started to board and the flight attendant informs me that it's still a little cold in the back. I push a few buttons and our air-conditioning/heating units screech to life.  Once that's complete, I move to the flight computer.  This is the most time-intensive task.  It takes a little time to load the performance data and flight plan into the computer.  Once complete, I start to pull up the weather in St Louis and our destination.  There's a mini-printer that we use to print various things like weather and organize it for future reference.  The last thing I have to do is pull up the clearance to verify that Air Traffic Control wants us to do what the company has filed in the system.  I print it, set up the transponder (the oh-so-controversial piece of equipment from the Malaysia crash), and finish setting up the automatic pressurization computer.

The final passenger has boarded and with him, the Captain.  He hops in his seat and starts running through his checks as I brief him on what I've done and read.  The parade of people into the flight deck starts as the Gate Agent, baggage handler, and flight attendant all hand us over various pieces of paper that we look over.  While the Captain looks over the paperwork, I put in the bag count into the computer and shortly after, the passenger count.  We send the information and a computer somewhere crunches the data.  It spits out various speeds, altitudes and headings which we need for both normal and emergency operations.  I finish setting up for take-off and, once we verify that we are within weight and balance limits, tell the Gate Agent to pull the jet-bridge and the flight attendant to close the door.  The bell rings as the bridge pulls away from the airplane and shortly after, our door slams shut.  After a 30 minute long crescendo, it's quiet.

The flight deck door is closed, locked and parking brake released.  With the drop of the handle, the clock starts and we are now getting paid for our work.  The Captain calls for me to run a few checklists to ensure we accomplished everything we were supposed to and within a minute, we're being pushed away from gate.  "Rough morning, eh?" I ask the guy next to me, the first non-canned interaction we've had since he introduced himself as he sat in his seat.

"You wouldn't believe how bad it's been," he replied.  The moment was brief as we clear the gate area and are told to start our engines.  Back to the practiced routine of call-outs, checklists and briefings.  Even as we taxi to the runway, we run more tests and checks that we haven't been able to do since the engines were off.  Everything is running and operating normally. I finish reading the "Taxi Checklist" when the Tower gives us our take-off instruction.  I rush to call the flight attendant, unlock the flight controls, run the last test and turn the transponder to its flight mode.  As we pull onto the runway, I finish the last checklist with a quick, "Before Takeoff Checklist, complete."

The lights of the runway are bright as the Captain lines up on the centerline.  He awakens the engines and we roar down the concrete toward a wall of black.  At 140 MPH, he pulls back on the controls and we quickly fly into nothingness.  It's quiet and dark as we race into the still-night sky.  "Waterski, Contact Departure.  Good Morning," the tower tell us.  "Departure.  Good morning."  I confirm.

Within a minute, we've turned back toward the east as we climb higher into the pre-dawn sky.  At 6:10 AM, the rest of Missouri is just beginning to stir from the warmth of their beds.  We leave the light-polluted area of St Louis behind and instantly the stars become visible, a white-paint splatter on a black canvas.  It's beautiful.  The rural lights on the ground and the stars meld together and I imagine myself flying through the blackness of space.  Its beauty is simple but pales in comparison to what happens next.

When we reach 4 miles above the earth, the blackness is parted by a deep blood red streak on the horizon as if our takeoff had nicked the night sky.  I slide my chair back, grab my coffee and just stare out the window to enjoy the show.  It's still early and the radios are quiet.  I sit in near silence as I enjoy the panoramic, unobstructed view of the sun rising over the East Coast.

As the earth turns toward the sun, the sky above the bleeding horizon begins to change.  At first it's a barely a hint of a blue streak resting above the growing red light but soon begins to spread.  I watch a deep blue sea surge over us as it battles the retreating blackness with its army of stars.  Between sips of coffee, I look in every direction and witness the daily war between night and day.  I glance back toward the still black horizon where the deep cherry smear is oozing in every direction creating an almost crimson backlight against the charcoal-blue backdrop of the sky.  

Where the sun will rise, the red is the brightest.  Like a volcano's lava spilling onto the rounded sides of the mountain below, the red bulges as it spreads to my periphery.  Above the bubbling lava, the dull blue sea, successful in its objective against the night, has now begun a transformation to beige;  a newly spawned bright layer of orange has perched itself on top of the deep crimson contaminating the blue ocean above.  The purest of blue only remains high in the sky as it mixes below with the orange and red.  My eyes follow the seemingly unnatural colorful spectrum of light as it changes from shadowy black to red to orange to beige to deep blue.  This journey brings my gaze behind the airplane where a hazy, hanging wall of red is now visible as if we had literally flown into the deepening wound of the night sky.  Between the wispy hanging red tendrils I can still see the blackness, the last remaining vestige of night as we fly through the solar terminator.  I chuckle to myself as I consider the term and mouth "I'll be back."

In an instant, the entire cockpit fills with a bright red light.  Up until this point, the sunrise was merely colors on a canvas.  Like the flipping of a switch, the sun has decided that it has waited long enough and begins to launch itself from behind the horizon.  I watch as it emerges from the volcano an oddly flattened crimson ball.  The beige buffer between the blue and orange has widened and is nearly filling the windshield as it just now begins to illuminate the terrain.  Blackness below has transformed into shadowy rivers, lakes, and a three-dimensional landscape of clouds. The sun continues to accelerate into the sky, moving at a perceptible pace.  Its effort appears to be changing its chemistry as the now tangerine colored orb bathes everything in the cockpit in orange.  Minutes later, the sun is clear of its night prison and basks us in early morning light.  The crisp, clean white light nearly blinds us as it chases away every shadow in the airplane.

The show is over and with it, our flight.  The Captain brings the power back as we begin descending toward the now colorful land below.  When we pull up to the gate, the engines are shut down and final checklists are run.  Once the last passenger has left, I hop out of my seat to begin the process again.  It'll be repeated three times today.  Following the final iteration, we will park the plane or give it to someone else so they can begin their day.  By the time we get to the hotel at any number of cities across the country, the sun will have already begun to set.

Tired from a long day, I'll walk into my hotel room, take off my uniform and reflect on the day.  Some days are stressful and frustrating, others are monotonous and boring.  One thing I can't deny is that I have the most beautiful office in the world.  I get to watch the sun rise over the east coast from well over 6 miles in the air.  I get to fly over the tallest buildings of Chicago, DC, St Louis, Houston, Cleveland and others missing them by a mere few thousand feet.  It's a perk that I will make every effort to appreciate.  To just sit in silence, no matter how bad the day, and appreciate the natural beauty that most will never get to see.

A Moment of Self-Reflection

This time of year was always the worst.  The winters of Montana left much to be desired.  At its worst, the days were short with the sun setting at 5pm and the temperatures persistantly below zero.  We used to be glad when the wind stopped even though it was -10 degrees.  It felt warm.

In all honesty, it was the most difficult time of my life.  The Air Force Academy was the most challenging but there was always a light at the end of the tunnel and we were all sure it wasn't a train.  In Montana, there was no light.  It was perpetually darker the deeper into the tunnel we went.  The job was stressful and infuriating.  The city was depressed and aging.  The music I listened to was increasingly angry and dark.

So, in the early part of 2010, I set out looking for something to help me out of my spiral.  It had always been a dream of mine to fly and, in the depth of the most depressing time of my life, I looked for something to help me climb out of it.  Coincidently enough, it was an airplane that brought me out of my deep funk.  I devoted every minute of my free time to flying and studying.  Once I had my private license, I spent time just going up and flying around Montana.  My friends and I would take short day trips to places that once required a weekend.

It wasn't unheard of for my roommates to be able to tell immediately when I'd spent the afternoon flying.  "You're in a good mood.  I take it you flew today," they would comment.  It was true.  Days I flew were my happiest days in Montana.  This played a huge role into my eventual career push to aviation.

Once I left Montana, I devoted my life to flying through total immersion.  I left my worldy possessions in Ohio and took only those things that would fit in my car to Florida.  I lived and breathed flying for 4 months.  If I wasn't at the airport flying, I was sitting in a Starbucks studying.  I'd take a day off to spend time with my family, but I was on a mission and there wasn't anything getting in my way.

Shortly after finishing training, I moved again to get more experience.  The more I flew, the faster I would reach the magic number needed to get hired by an airline.  I continued to spend every waking moment thinking about aviation.  It wasn't unheard of to take only 3 days off each month.  The days I did have off, I spent studying for my Airline Transport Pilot certificate, making resumes, or researching potential employers.  This was my dream and there wasn't a force in this world that would take this away from me.

It took only two years in Florida to get to where I'm at now.  I once again packed my car and headed to another new city further from the known and deeper into the unknown.  I was so close to my dream that I could taste it.  I went back to the familiar routine at the local Starbucks where I spent on average 4 hours each night.  It wasn't unheard of for me to spend 6 to 7 hours on weekends in coffee shops and studying.  As you all know, I would go on to finish training and pass my check ride.

It is now that my life has come to a grinding halt.  Now that training has finished, I find myself lost in life.  For the past 4 years, I've devoted my life to aviation because it made me happy.  Today is no different.  Each day I take the runway and command my engines to roar to life, I smile inside as we accelerate down the two mile long concrete pad.  It is just as exciting as it was when I left the ground in central Montana.  Unfortunately, my ability to push forward has stopped.  I've reached a fixed timeline where begging for work would be futile.  I'm forced to take 11-13 days off each month, nearly trippling my days off from the past 3 years.  

After devoting my life to this dream, I now live it.  On my days off, however, I feel aimless.  I no longer need to use it as an escape from my depressing Montana life.  I no longer need to immerse myself in it to accelerate my journey to the end.  I'm at the end.  I've finished the race.  There's one more big hurdle to clear before I'm completely satisfied with who I've become but for the most part I've entered stasis.  What do I do now?  As I look in the mirror each morning during my mandated 12 days off, I wonder who I am.  I've turned my life-saving hobby into an incredible career.  They say if you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life.  I have found this to be true, but what about the days you don't work?  No one ever talks about what you do once you've reached your goal.  I put my head down to charge to the finish line.  I stand here, at the end, victorious.  Unfortunately, a lot has changed in 4 years and I don't know where I am.  Even worse, I don't know where to go from here.  

Delays and Missed Connections, the Why

Most of the stories start the same.  You're sitting behind your computer screen at work or home.  It's 10 degrees outside and only January.  Two more months of winter, you sigh to yourself as you stare out the window at the mounds of snow that have set up "temporary" living quarters on every horizontal surface.  It takes a few minutes to get the motivation to return your gaze to the computer screen where the internet browser has been sitting idly open to your homepage.  Too late.  You can't remember why you wanted to get on the internet in the first place.

As you sluggishly move your cursor to open Facebook for the 100th time today, the rotating newsfeed on the homepage news/search/spam you never bothered to reset pops up a picture of a white sand beach with the title "Top 10 Cheapest Vacation Destinations for 2014." That's when the idea pops in your head.  The bank account is a little fatter than normal from lack of use this winter and with the Christmas bonus, you might have enough for an impromptu vacation!  You've had enough of this disgusting white snow and would like to exchange it for some warm white sand.  There is only one question that remains: "How much will it cost me?"

The deal hunter in you goes into action.  You scour travel websites like Expedia, Priceline and Kayak looking for the absolute lowest price.  Of course there aren't any direct flights from your local airport to the warmth of Palm Beach so you look for the quickest and cheapest route to get you to the Sunshine State.  After an hour of browsing, two options remain.  The first flight leaves at 5:00 am with an arrival of 10:00am while the second leaves at noon and get you in just before happy hour starts on the beach.  After minutes of consideration, you ditch the 5:00am flight because it's a few dollars more expensive and your room wouldn't be ready that early anyways. If you leave at noon, you get to sleep longer AND save money.  Your fate is sealed when you click "purchase ticket." No turning back now.

****

"What's wrong with that," you might be asking.  There is nothing technically incorrect with the way in which you came to your conclusion but it is perplexing that you did so little research before purchasing your ticket other than how much it costs.  I know people who spend months looking at reviews of televisions before spending the $400 to buy it and others who defend spending a little extra to ensure you receive a quality product.  When it comes to air travel, nearly every single casual traveler just cares about one single thing: cheap.  The next thing?  When do I have to wake up and when do I get there.  

In a time when margins are tighter, this mentality is understood but it leads to you unknowingly rolling the dice on your vacation.  Sometimes behind the scenes, there are forces working against you and had you done a little more research and spent a little more upfront, you might save yourself hundreds of dollars and days of frustration. 

What should you be looking for?  The answer to that question is complicated.  Of all the mistakes you can make, the one that is most understated is purchasing a ticket with under an hour layover.  Your hastiness in buying a ticket and your hatred of airports has tricked your mind into booking yourself on a regional jet with a 40-minute connection in Chicago in February on United.  Seasoned business travelers have all collectively groaned because they learned that lesson the hard way long ago.  This is the story of "why" that is a bad idea.

Chicago O'Hare is one of the busiest airports in the United States second only to Atlanta.  A major hub airport for both United and American, Chicago also boasts some of the worst winter weather in the country.  During an average day, Chicago will process 3200 operations.  When broken down and spread over 24 hours, that equates to 1 arrival per minute.  At peak times (between noon and 6pm), the airport can and does handle up to 114 arrivals per hour or two arrivals per minute during good weather.  In bad weather, capacity is slowed to 75% their optimum rate.  So what does this have to do with you?

When you book a ticket, there is no way to know if the weather will be bad on any particular day.  Scheduled flight times are averages and will often include some small fudge factors to account for time of day or seasonal effects of flight times.   They do not take into account potential ground delays, deicing, or ATC flow control.  These are unfortunate events that the airline and traveler have to just take as they come.

You decided to pack a carry-on rolling suitcase for this trip to save yourself the $70 round trip and as you board the plane as scheduled, things are looking up.  You'll get to Chicago and have 45 minutes to get to your next gate.  Heck, it looks like they may even be taking off a little early leaving you time to get a snack while you wait to board.  You and 35 other people leave your luggage planeside since your regional jet is not permitted to have them in the passenger cabin, take a seat and settle in for a nap.

Up front, the mentality is a lot different.  As we scour the documents and weather into Chicago, we already know what is going to happen.  Weather is moving in from the southwest and we are pushing the gate agents to take off early to avoid a ground stop.  During significant weather conditions, Chicago will inform the FAA that no more airplanes are permitted to take off anywhere in the country if their destination is Chicago.  Shocked?  Don't be. This happens regularly.  I have personally encountered a ground delay or ground stop 4 times in the month of January alone.

Luckily, your airplane leaves early and soon you are enjoying your soda blissfully unaware that the engines have spooled down earlier than normal.  "Do not exceed 280 knots for spacing into Chicago," Air Traffic Control informs us as we work the power back to a lower setting.  Here's what is happening:

The picture above is a general depiction of the arrival corridors into Chicago when landing to the west.  It's not quite as simple as a straight line from one airport to another. Assuming you're coming from St Louis, you'll enter the arrival as far away as 150 miles southwest of the airport and get sequenced for landing and assigned a runway.  On a normal day, Chicago operates 3 arrival runways and 3 departure runways.

The "West Flow" is how you're approaching Chicago today.  On a normal day, ATC advises us to "keep our speed up."  We'll approach from the southwest at over 350 MPH until we're within 50 miles.  On this particular day, your airplane is already about 60 mph slower than normal.  It isn't unheard of to be as much as 100 MPH slow. "Slow now to 200 knots," your pilots are instructed.  The reason isn't stated but we are getting automated updates and know the weather at the airport is deteriorating and runways are closing so snow crews can begin the snow removal process.

As runways are closed, operations are consolidated.  Already departures have been limited to 2 runways by the bad weather and no longer can the airport allow for separate arriving and departing runways. Normally, arriving aircraft can be spaced to land at 2-3 minute intervals.  If snow starts falling, spacing will increase to 3-4 minutes as aircraft take longer to stop and get off the runway.  If departures are moved to an arrival runway, landing airplanes may need to be spaced 6 minutes apart to allow airplanes to takeoff.  On really windy days in the Windy City, the crosswind runways (the diagonal ones) are used essentially going from a 6 runway operation to two.  You can see how things can start back up quickly.

Luckily for you, only two runways are closed and your airplane is assigned the furthest north landing runway, Runways 27R.  You should've landed 5 minutes ago but haven't even heard the landing gear come down yet.  By the time you finally make it the ground, the airplane is 10 minutes late.  On a bad weather day in Chicago, that's early.  You've beat the rush.

You smile to yourself as you'll have 35 minutes to catch your outbound flight.  Unfortunately, there is more bad news that only the pilots can see.  You've landed but on the north runway.  Here is what your taxi will look like:

Here is the standard taxi route from the north runway to gate B22 in Chicago.  Depending on the weather conditions and congestion on the ground, you can expect to taxi between 15-25 mph.  For those doing the math, it's going to take at least 15 minutes once you land to get to your gate.  If you'd gotten the runway just north of the terminal, the taxi time would be 3 minutes.  These things aren't controlled by your airline but by demand on the air traffic controllers.  Occasionally I've gotten taxi shortcuts but most times we get the standard route.

So, you've landed and you don't know it yet, but you probably will get to the gate almost 30 minutes behind schedule.  Today you're lucky.  Gate B22 didn't have anyone departing before you arrive so it's open.  Since deicing occurs at the gate in Chicago, many times the gates are occupied when we land.  Have you ever seen planes just parked as you taxi by?  That's what we refer to as the "penalty box."  If your gate had been occupied when you landed, you would get to park there until one opens up.  Chicago actually has several penalty boxes.  If you get assigned the wrong one, you'll have to "take a lap" as we call it sending you the long way around the airport to get to your gate.  In really bad weather, that's at least a 15 minute journey.  I've had it to take a lap to get to my departure runway causing us to spend as much as 45 minutes on the ground before becoming airborne.

When you arrive at the gate, the Captain turns off the fasten seatbelt sign and you jump up to grab your bags with the rest of the 65 people on the airplane trying to make their connections.  You protest because your flight leaves in 15 minutes but other people don't care.  Their one hour or more connection just got cut by 30 minutes as well.  You rush out of the door to get your carry-on but more bad news awaits.

Remember how you didn't want to spend $70 to check your bag or the $30 extra dollars for an earlier flight with a longer layover?  This is where it comes back to bite you.  During the non-holiday travel seasons, you're accompanied by primarily business travelers who also gate check their bags.  So, now you have to wait as the ramp crew unloads 35 bags from the airplane and moves them up to the jet bridge.  Most airport infrastructure was designed for almost all bags to be checked at the ticket counter and, when there are a lot of gate checked bags, this process becomes time consuming and tedious.  I've seen it take upwards of 10-15 minutes for all the bags to be unloaded in the jet bridge.

You finally catch a break and almost jump for joy when you see your bag come out first.  It's still been about 5 minutes since you parked and your connecting flight leaves in 10 minutes.  You nearly run to grab it then jog into the airport looking for the nearest monitor to see where your departing flight is awaiting.  No break to be caught here.  You're going to gate F12, literally 3/4 of a mile away (I mapped the distance online).  At a full out run, you might be able to do it in 5 minutes but you're pulling a carry-on bag and a bookbag on your shoulders.  Realistically, it'll probably take you at least 10 minutes just to walk to your gate.  If you're older, it could take up to 15 minutes.

Remember that the airplane has to be out of the gate at the scheduled time so gate agents will usually try to stop boarding 5-10 minutes prior.  You've now missed your flight and things even went partially your way during the bad weather event.  There wasn't a ground delay and you didn't have to deice at your home airport.  You didn't have to fly circles over Chicago, also called a hold, waiting for an arrival slot.  Your gate wasn't occupied when you landed and you didn't have to wait for rampers to park your airplane. You got your bags first and you were on a small airplane to begin with.  If you'd flown on a larger plane, the lowest priced tickets are near the back.  It could take 15 minutes to get out of the back of one of those as you watch the painful process of old people pulling 30 pound bags out from over their head.  Had your connection been an hour, you would have made it by the skin of your teeth.  There was a chance that your outbound flight could be delayed as well, but that's a roll of dice.  I can't even count the number of times I've been on a delayed flight while my connecting flight was on-time.  It is maddening and always seems to be fighting against you.

Now what?  Well, since weather caused you to miss your flight, the airline will not get you a hotel room, assuming any are available as hundred of people are beginning to miss their connecting flights.  If the snow continues, crews will begin timing out and flights will get canceled.  Hundreds turn into a thousand people.  Assuming you put your email address down when you booked your tickets, your updated itinerary will be emailed to you automatically.  If you didn't, you'll have to wait in an incredibly long line to find out when you can leave next.

Feeling lucky?  Unfortunately for you, there aren't anymore flights to Palm Beach tonight.  The last one was canceled or oversold.  You're booked out first thing in the morning and will either have to sleep in the airport or get a hotel room for the night.  Just hope that the weather doesn't cause rolling cancellations like on dozens of occasions across the country so far this winter.

So, what can you do to help yourself out?  Be an informed consumer.  Just because you think all form of air travel is created equal does not mean that is the reality.  Here are some helpful hints when booking your flights:

1) Know when and where you're flying.  If you absolutely have to connect through places like Chicago, New York, and Detroit in the winter, make sure your connection is at the very least an hour.  If I was spending my own money, I wouldn't be comfortable with anything less than an hour and a half.  The same can be said of southern and tornado alley airports like Atlanta, Houston, and Dallas in the spring and summer

2)  Know what kind of airplane you're flying on and what seats are available.  Many websites will allow you to see the available seats at the time of purchase.  Are the only seats available in row 35?  Better make sure your layover isn't 30 minutes.  Don't count on your fellow travelers being courteous.  My friend Katy and Richard witnessed people not letting paramedics onto the airplane when they landed in Europe to help a woman with a medical emergency.  Are you flying on a regional jet aircraft?  These aircraft are scheduled to fly more frequently because their bottom lines are far more sensitive.  Unfortunately, they are also more exposed to rolling delays.  Oh, and they also account for well over 50% of the domestic flying.

3)  Know the performance of your particular flight.  If it isn't published on the website you're using to book your flight, there are many apps and websites that do publish on-time performance.  Do you have a 30 minute connection in Minneapolis on a Wednesday?  See how it performs before you buy.  I've seen a flight be 75% On-time while 15% of the time, the aircraft is delayed 45 minutes to an hour.  Are you comfortable knowing there's a nearly 1/5 chance you won't make your connection?  Even if you book on United.com, there are very broad "On-Time Performance" statistics published.  The free App called "FlightTrack" publishes statistics in 15 minute increments.

Unfortunately, there are times like the situation I described earlier where you just couldn't catch all the breaks.  What can you do to save yourself money once you get to the airport?

1) Check the weather before you drive to the airport.  If it is bad enough, sometimes airlines will allow you to rebook or cancel for free.  Better to do that than try to fly into a Hurricane.

2) Expect the unexpected.  Eat before you arrive and bring food in your bag in case your hour connection turns into a 4 hour connection.  TSA has limited liquids, not sandwiches.  Being stuck in a place like Chicago is expensive.  The cheapest food of any substance is a small sandwich and it costs $8.  As if you needed me to tell you airport food is expensive.

3)  Take responsibility for your own travel and think outside the box.  Use your smartphone to your advantage. Are you for sure going to miss your connecting flight?  Talk to the gate agent at your hometown airport.  They are already rebooking your ticket so you might ask to spend another night at home versus on the floor of the airport in Chicago.  Don't forget that they might not all be as motivated as you'd like them to be.  They deal with hundreds of angry and needy passengers everyday.  Plus, their primary job is to get you on the plane, not to do booking.  Sometimes suggesting you go through another city like Houston or New York might get you there today.

4)  Related to number 3 above, don't be a prick.  The people you are talking to are probably making less than $10/hr and are only giving you information they get from their little computers.  You'll never talk to someone at Operations and there is no "nationwide tracking software" for airplanes.  Is your airplane showing on-time but it hasn't left the airport it's coming from yet?  The agents don't control the departure board or gate screen or the airline.  I can't tell you how many times people yell and call them liars.  If they tell you they don't know, they honestly don't know.  If the computer is telling them on-time, who are they to say it won't be?  Maybe they are going to pull an airplane from the hanger and use a reserve crew to fly it.  Sometimes those decisions are being made at completely different companies than United Airlines (e.g. the regional carriers).  Want them to go out of their way to help?  Attacking them personally isn't going to get it done.  Oh, and really want to yell at a brick wall?  Complain to or yell at a pilot or flight attendant.  The only thing they have control of is whether to give you an extra soda.

Unfortunately, you can expect more delays and cancellations into the summer and into the near future.  With an impending pilot shortage, regional airlines are having a hard time staffing their cockpits.  When flying in a $15-$300 million jet burning no less than 600 gallons of jet fuel an hour ($65 a minute), just be glad your ticket costs probably costs marginally more than you'd pay for gas if you drove it.  In fact, you're paying 50% less than you paid 30 years ago.  

The Storm of the Quarter-Century

December 31st

Christmas Day was spent with my iPad as I watched my family in Ohio open presents and get ready for Christmas dinner.  At first glance, that probably sounds pretty sad but it's much better than the alternative of sitting at home alone without any interaction at all.  To be completely honest, it felt as if I were there except I had no presents to open and I didn't get the eat my family's delicious Christmas Dinner.  It was a Chinese buffet for me!

My friend Shane was getting married in Grand Rapids, Michigan on the following Saturday so I headed up to take part in the festivities.  Richard, my friend who I talked extensively about in a previous blog (What is Fair?), his wife and their relatively newborn son, my Godson, also made the trip to Grand Rapids.  The last time I'd seen him was as he was sitting in the NICU after being born 6 weeks early.

It was an incredible three days in the bitter cold of Western Michigan and such a beautiful wedding...not mention a beautiful bride!  Unfortunately, the fun ended all too soon as the Caitlyn and Shane headed off to Hawaii.  I had to catch the early morning flight back to St Louis the following day.

The 31st, though, was a different story.  Just as soon as the sun was beginning to rise over the Gateway City, my phone rang.  "Chris, we have a trip for you."  This wasn't a surprise.  It was almost expected that I would be working New Years Eve.  "You're going to be overnighting in Harrisburg with an 11 am show the following morning.  You should be back in St Louis by 4 pm the next day."

I copied down my flight information but knew this wasn't going to be as simple as a single overnight.  I still had 5 days remaining on-call.  Just as I usually do when I'm getting ready, I turned on The Weather Channel to see what the next two days would be bringing me as I was ringing in the new year in eastern Pennsylvania.

When I finished shaving, I turned off the water and immediately heard ominous music coming from my television.  This was the Weather Channel, right?  The only times they play horror movie music is when hurricanes are bearing...I stopped my thought there and walked to my living room.  I arrived in time for them to tease a winter storm that would be setting its aim at the Plains in the next few days. Its expected arrival in the Midwest was on the 4th--my final day of reserve. I still have 5 days on-call, I thought to myself again.  This was going to get interesting.

Just as I expected, the following three days included much more flying.  When I awoke in Dayton, Ohio on the 3rd, things had started to deteriorate in the Central part of the country and the Weather Channel was spouting doom and gloom.  "We expect as much as 14 inches of snow in places like St Louis and Chicago over the next two days with record breaking temperatures to follow," one anchor warned.  As a meteorologist, I'm always a little skeptical of the all-mighty Weather Channel. They are paid by how many people watch and what better way to get more viewers than to warn that the end is near?

On the 3rd, they routed me back to St Louis for a short 10-hour overnight.  As I got off the plane, I overheard people in the gate area talking about the grocery stores in St Louis and how bread and milk were almost completely sold out.  They went to several different stores, the people said, and none had any.  Many here were clearly taking this storm seriously.  On the drive home, digital displays over the highway were warning of a winter storm.  The last thing I wanted to do after 6 days on the road was get stuck.

I had been assigned a one day trip in the morning scheduled to arrive back in St Louis well after the storm was supposed to start.  Massive delays were imminent and with the implementation of new FAA imposed rest rules the same day, I knew the 4th was going to get ugly.  I checked my schedule one last time before bed.  It was going to be a deadhead leg (ride in the back) to Chicago.  Then I was going to fly from Chicago to St Louis to Dulles and then deadhead back to St Louis at 9:00pm.  What does this mean?  With the storm set to be draped over Cleveland, Chicago, and down into northern Texas, I was going to spend the entire day in the snow.

January 4th

It was already a brutal winter with so many people stranded following the storms before Christmas and they knew it wasn't going to get any better over the next few days.  The sun was still peeking through the clouds but the day's early snow flurries showed that the storm, not scheduled to arrive until tonight, was going to be a snowy one.

When we arrived in Chicago, I went to a food court to try and kill some of the two hours I had to wait until my flight was scheduled to depart.  The sad stories I overheard of people sleeping in airports and missing Christmas confirmed how bad this winter has been for traveling.  These people were returning home after the holidays and some were unknowingly going to get a second dose of winter.

When I arrived at my gate, the scheduled departure time was starting to creep further into the future.  When I left the food court, it was showing on time but by the time I arrived at the gate, it had moved to a 30 minute delay.  Over the next hour the time kept getting pushed back in increments of 10 but after an hour, the updates stopping coming.  I stood there and watched as people anxiously checked their watches and grumbled to themselves.  Here I was, the enemy, a company man.  I was part of the problem.  "Are you waiting for a flight too?  I bet we don't even have pilots when the plane arrives." One woman snarked at me.  I informed her that I was one of the pilots for that flight and her tone immediately changed.  "Oh, you're a pilot?  For this flight? Well,that's good!"  Of course I'm a pilot.  Why else would I be wearing this uniform?

After an hour and a half, the airplane we were supposed to be on was still sitting in Michigan.  That's not good.  It should've left long ago if we are going to get out at the new departure time.  After one last refresh of the browser, the red CANCELED popped up.

I immediately called scheduling.  They were deadheading me back to St Louis on a later flight so I could still work DC flight. When I checked the departure board to find my new gate, more and more flights were getting canceled.  In fact, the three remaining flights to St Louis, only one remained.  Luckily, because I needed to get back to fly, I was booked as a 'Must-Ride,' meaning that paying passengers are bumped so that I get a seat.  No one else knew that as a horde of people from the canceled flights rushed to the next gate to beg to list as standby or get rebooked.

When we (the horde and I) arrived at the gate, there was already a line.  One girl started crying.  "What am I going to do?" she weeped to herself in the middle of the terminal.  I stood there in silence watching the drama unfold.  There was nothing I could do for these people even though everything inside me wanted to.

"You don't understand," one man pleaded with the agent, "I NEED to get to St Louis."  He apparently thought he was the only man in the airport needing to be somewhere and was unaware that there were now 150 people at the gate needing to be in St Louis but only 64 seats. At that moment, an airplane pulled up to the gate, a regional jet like the one we were supposed to be on.  People started cheering, most blissfully unaware that our airplane hadn't even departed Minnesota yet.  I looked out the window and it was indeed the wrong airplane.  It was also then that I realized how much snow was falling.  There was already an inch on the ground and it was falling so heavily that you could barely see the terminal on the other side of the ramp.  Another pilot and I attempted to try and explain to some of them that this wasn't our airplane but they refused to listen.

The Captain of the misidentified airplane, one from my company, walked through the gate door and up to me.  "We're repositioning this airplane (meaning it was flying empty) to Dulles.  Do you need a ride?"  I wanted to say yes but was still waiting for the last flight to St Louis.  "Okay, well if anything changes, we shouldn't be leaving for another 30 minutes."

Several minutes after the Captain disappeared down the jetway, one Army Private in uniform stood up and started swearing. "You've got to be FUCKING KIDDING ME! It's canceled!  Now what!"  I should have been surprised by his audacious display of anger but it wasn't the first time I'd seen someone in uniform have an outburst in an airport.  He was right about one thing though; the flight was canceled.  I called scheduling again to see what they wanted to do with me.  This time, the phone just kept ringing.  I tried back several times before anyone answered.

Back at headquarters, things were starting to deteriorate.  When I finally was connected, I asked the scheduler what they wanted to do with me now.  She sounded flustered separating most of her words with "uh" and "um."  In the background, I heard someone speaking loudly.  "Give me a second.  I'll call you back. We just got word that the city is shutting down operations in Chicago tonight for three days."

Holy shit...they're doing what?  I stood there, mouth open.  Shutting down a major international airport like Chicago, a hub for two of the world's largest airlines, United and American, meant that things were going to be worse than expected.  "Wait!" I blurted as panic started to creep in, "There is a repo flight at the gate in front of me, tail number 835, going to Dulles.  I can catch the last flight out of there tonight if I have to.  I don't care, I just want out of Chicago."  She agreed and sent me catch the flight.  I left the burgeoning chaos of the airport and met the Captain in the flight deck.  Just as I was walking back to have a seat, the phone rang again.

"Chris, you need to get off the airplane.  We are missing two First Officers and might need you to work a flight out of Chicago tonight."  My stomach sank.  The word "might" had me concerned.  If they find them, I'll be stuck here. If it takes too long, I might not even have a hotel room for the next 3 days.  I walked back up to the Captain and asked when they would be leaving.  He told me that as soon as they could shut the door, they were getting out of there.  I grabbed my suitcase and sulked off the airplane.  The last thing I wanted to do right now was face the angry mass of humanity in Chicago.

All I could do at this point was wait.  The longer I waited, though, the worse things were going to get.  I heard more people yelling behind me.  One group of passengers had just walked up from below the terminal.  Apparently, they were taxiing to the runway and had to return when one of pilots "timed out."  He'd reached the end of his duty day and it was now illegal for him to continue.  Unfortunately for them, there were no longer any gates and they had to be bussed back from a remote parking pad.

The angry mob was being lead by a young Navy Officer dressed in his khaki uniform and black pea coat.  He stood there and pointed his finger at the "A-team" customer service agent and demanded they bring their bags to them immediately.  "Send someone down here right now to get our stuff.  We are not moving from here until you do!"  He turned on his cell phone camera to record the man's response.  As he did, another man in the mob started demanding they send someone down to the gate to rebook them.

"I'm sorry sir, you're going to have to go down to the customer service counter like everyone else for your rebooking," the surprisingly calm man said.  He wasn't just any normal agent.  He was wearing a suit and an earpiece.  It appeared like he was the corporate version of crowd control.  Another woman became hysterical and started screaming at the man.  Others chimed in and demanded they go first in the line.  This wasn't weather, they said, this was YOUR fault!  "Ma'am, two international flights were just cancelled.  Why do you think you're more important than every single one of them?"

The crowd had become irrational and continued to blame the suited man for all the problems. It was then that I heard someone in the back say something about 5 hours.  "Yes, right now the wait is 5 hours.  We've called in as many people as we can find but the weather is preventing many from arriving.  Others have called in sick.  We are doing the best we can."  The agent looked at the man taping him and said, "Oh, and thanks for recording me man."  The officer yelled back a trite you're welcome and it was then that the agent saw he was uniformed military. He hesitated a moment before thanking him politely for his service.  I wouldn't have.

The wait is 5 hours?... I need out of here!

My phone rang.  "We have you on a reposition flight back to St Louis.  I've called the crew and they are waiting for you at gate B19.  The Captain wants to know how soon you can be there."  Minutes! I jumped up and yanked the charger out of the wall.  Hastily, I stuffed it in my bag and briskly left the gate area touching each one of my pockets to ensure I had everything.  As I made my way to the other end of the terminal, I weaved in and out of groups of people yelling at their cellphones.  One woman swore at me as I walked by; others in her group did their best to calm her down.  People were laying on the ground using clothes out of their carry-on bags as blankets and pillows.  The bars were full of angry, drunk passengers.

It wasn't long before I walked up to an empty gate where my plane was sitting.  When I walked through the main cabin door, I saw 6 other crew members sitting in the back.  They were escaping the chaos as well.

I sat down and buckled my seatbelt.  The pilot next to me spoke up.  "I just got off the phone with a friend of mine in the aircraft next to us.  They are repositioning the plane to DC.  He said there are 30 crew members  on that plane.  Looks like they are getting as many crews and planes out while they still can."  Airplanes don't make money frozen to the ground in Chicago (something that actually happened when operations started again days later) so the companies were spending a lot of money to move aircraft to areas where they could fly.

As the airplane was backing away from the terminal, I couldn't help but think of the anarchy I was leaving.  Many of the people, including airline employees, didn't know the airport was shutting down for 3 days.  Worse yet, it was late enough in the evening that most wouldn't get hotel rooms.  The stranded passengers would be without homes for days, trapped away from their families and jobs.  I understood their frustration and while I felt sadness for them, I was glad I was escaping.  I felt like one of the lucky survivors of the zombie apocalypse.  The cabin of our plane was quiet, the first I'd heard in almost 6 hours.  As the engines roared to life, I leaned against the window and slept.

****

It was one of the worst storms of the last 25 years.  Many people I talked to were looking back to 1983, the year I was born, to find anything similar.  Chicago, true to their word, shut the airport down but they weren't the only ones.  Cleveland, New York, Boston, and Detroit stopped or severely limited service.  The morning after, over 4000 flights across the country were canceled.  Luckily for me, I was sitting at home watching it all on the news. More than a foot of snow fell on St Louis forcing the city to shut down for the next two days.  The only businesses open were gas stations and the occasional mostly empty grocery store.

Two days later, I flew one of the first waves of United Express flights back into Chicago.  When I walked into the terminal I was so happy to leave 3 nights ago, I glanced at the Departures board.  More than half of the flights were still being canceled.  Here is a picture of the Departures board when I arrived early in the morning:

The storm had left airplanes and crews stranded and out of place.  At our airline alone, pilots were trapped in Cleveland, Roanoke, and Rochester for 2 days.  The weather was holding them and their airplanes hostage.  An email was sent out to our pilot group begging for volunteers to fly but with the new rest rules imposed by the FAA, many could not.  I flew for the next 4 days straight picking up the slack from timed-out or out of place crews but it wasn't enough.  As late as the 9th, 5 days after the storm, flights were still being cancelled.  It wasn't until the 11th, an entire week after the storm hit, were operations back to normal.  Even then, flights were still completely full as passengers rebooked during the chaos were just now getting home.  As I look back, part of me knows that no one handled the Great New Year's Storm of 2014 well, but considering the circumstances, I don't think any of us could have handled it better.