Today Joel and I are on our way to Denver for the weekend. For some reason the flights were abnormally full especially considering there’s a flight almost every hour between O’Hare and Denver.
Not to brag or anything but I am pretty awesome at looking at loads and figuring out whether or not I’m going to make it on the flight. I’m also not a fan of sitting around airports all day especially when I’m not being paid to do so. Normally if I don’t think I’ll get on a flight I just don’t try. I seriously hate the hassle.
Anyway, I checked the loads last night and the first several flights of the day were very oversold. That, and the fact that it was almost 2am convinced me not to even try for them. There was a 777 going out late afternoon and even though economy was almost 90 people oversold I thought we could make it into business class since it was completely empty. Silly me. Not only did they not call one single standby, some people with paid tickets didn’t even get on.
The next flight was a 757. Not as big but still I thought maybe. Nope. No standbys on that one either. Crap! Now I was starting to get frustrated. I seriously almost never miss a flight, especially ones I think I’m going to get on.
The next flight was another 777. Our names were literally on the edge of available seats vs standbys. Also, this was the second to last flight of the day. As boarding drew to a close and our names still looked like they miiight get called the suspense was killing me. Twenty one seats left and we were 20 and 21. The CSR called several names and then just said everyone else come up. Yes! You better believe I was the first in line. (in the least obnoxious way possible) I knew we were close to the very last to get on the plane and when we were given middle seats in the back of the plane I wasn’t at all surprised. I was shocked however when I saw we were sitting together. I would’ve been happy with a seat in the lav so I was ecstatic to be able to sit next to Joel. When you’re flying standby it’s seriously the little things.
I feel so lucky to have gotten this job where I can do things like fly to Denver just to visit friends. There’s no way we could afford to just buy a plane ticket right now. Even though it’s frustrating and I’m not able to actually work my job right now I’m so grateful. It may not be glamorous but I love, love, love being a flight attendant.
Michellehing t
This would seriously (even with the frustrations of sitting around an airport all day) would be the coolest perk of any job I could ever imagine. What an awesome, awesome thing to be able to just hop on a flight for a weekend!
skywaitress
It really is and I have to remind myself of that when I get all stabby from not getting on flight after flight. I’m so lucky and I need to try and take advantage of my benefits as much as possible while I still have them. 🙂