Commuting by Flight

Commuting to work by flight is not the most forgiving way to travel. It's very difficult, actually, and can be heart wrenching. As a flight attendant, I can live wherever I want to in the world, and this offers loads of freedom if you are willing to be patient and have the seniority to make your trips commutable; this is when they start in the afternoon and end in the morning, giving you ample opportunity to make it home with several flights of opportunity. Many people commute to bases where they can have a higher seniority and pick their trips more easily to make their schedule work to fit their lives and their commuting flights to work and back.

Amazingly enough, I know a couple of flight attendants in my airline who commute from Italy and Costa Rica to work here in the United States! I can't imagine that commute, but if you've been with my company for fifteen years, you can work a trip a month and keep your benefits and full-time status (so you keep your health insurance as well). I hope to reach that one day and stay at home full-time with my hypothetical kiddos and work a second job from home.

Today, however, is not that easy. The flights were very open yesterday, and then, a flight cancelled, and all the flights were suddenly overbooked. So...here I am sitting at another Grand Junction gate (just for fun at this point), waiting to see if I luck out with a seat. I'm #5 on the standby list, and the flight is overbooked by four people...so yeah, we'll see. There is a low probability, but it could happen. I've seen a flight overbooked by six board six standbys in the end. You never know whether misconnections (delayed flights that will bring in passengers too late for their originally scheduled flight) will open up a few seats or if passengers miss their flight. However, passengers usually don't miss the later flights in the day.

I had a particularly rough day, where our first flight of the day was delayed over an hour. I knew that if I didn't rush to make up time on all the flights I would miss my last opportunity to go home that night on the 10:20 pm flight. On our last turn we were going to Calgary and back, everything was going great, we were taxiing to take off to come back to Denver, and...the captain announced that we were over fueled and would have to sit on the tarmac to burn off the extra gas for twenty minutes. Twenty minutes! Long story short, I ran to the gate to go home, just in time to see them close the aircraft door and cry.

Is it worth it? I don't ask myself that question, but sometimes people considering commuting will. For me, it is. It's definitely not for every flight attendant. It would be much easier to know that at the end of my trip, I would be in my home and able to drive myself home...or even Uber if my car broke down...you get the point. It would be nice to know that I would see David's face at the end of the day, and around what time, depending on delays. I, however, love where I live. It's so beautiful to me, way more than Denver (although I could only afford Aurora, so don't be mad at me for the judgment), and more affordable by far. Also, my fiancé's family lives nearby, and I have my brother there too. So it's worth it for me to live where I love to be.

Sometimes, however, I still wonder...like right now, when my heart is pounding, and I'm waiting for the last passenger to come to the gate and take my seat or a standby above me to show up. I could miss my flight if this happens. I always feel sick to my stomach when it does. It definitely sucks. And if the last passenger decides to show up...I'm waiting until the next flight.