The Rerouted Skytress

There are several memes on Pinterest that make me chuckle every time I see them. There is an image of a gold Oscar next to an airplane window. The words in each meme are, “And the Oscar goes to your flight attendant…..for acting like…”. Each meme has a funny relatable comment that follows. In my head I add a few witty comments myself. Such as,… “And the Oscar goes to your flight attendant…..for acting calm when you tell her you don’t want ice in your drink AFTER you silently sat there watching her put ice in your cup and pour your drink. Or, “And the Oscar goes to your flight attendant ….for acting like she has never heard the witty comment,… ‘I’ll have the steak and she will have the lobster’…when she comes to your row to serve you a beverage”. Ideally though, Skytresses and Skyters should get an Oscar for all the times we act like a pilot. Acting like pilots has come in handy numerous times in my career. There are even days when I remind myself to act like a pilot. Unfortunately, the other day I forgot. So the Oscar went to someone else.

When I woke up in Fort Myers on January 10th, I lifted my phone off the night stand and learned from the Weather Channel that there was a FAA ground stop due to a system outage. Egads! I’ll admit. I groaned a wee bit. I did stop shy of cursing. Heck. It wasn’t our go home day. I try to keep the cursing for when things go wrong on our go home day. Instead, bleary-eyed me looked at our rotation to see what this stoppage meant for me and my crew. I quickly learned we would be departing the hotel an hour later than scheduled. I could hear the cleaning ladies circling outside my hotel room. I was convinced if I opened my door the housekeeper would have sashayed into the room with her vacuum. I knew I needed to alert the authorities to give the command for the housekeepers to retreat for another hour. So, I called the ultimate authorities. Yessiree. I called down to the hotel front desk. Remarkably, while staying at this hotel I have had several scheduled pickup times changed for a later departure time. The hotel has always been accommodating changing our check out time. Just like previous trips, I called down to the front desk to let them know we would be departing an hour later than scheduled. Shockingly, the gentleman at the front desk told us we would need to check out at our regular time. Huh?! I was flabbergasted when he told me this. The gentleman explained we were more than welcome to hang out in the hotel lobby or hotel restaurants until our crew van arrived. However, housekeeping needed to turn our rooms around because they were completely booked for the evening. I immediately regretted calling the front desk. I knew I should have just told my crew to meet in the lobby an hour later than our original pick-up time and never involve the hotel guy. Heck, if housekeeping knocked on our doors I’d inform them we would be checking out in an hour. By the time they got things figured out at their end, we would be sitting in the van heading to the airport. Long story short, though, my crew and I went down to the lobby at our original pickup time. Don’t feel too bad for us, though. We drank tea and talked for an hour. Ah yes. These are two of our Skytress super powers. One of our pilots was sitting in the restaurant when we came down. He told us that he saw our pickup time had changed. Unlike us, he didn’t call anyone. Nope. He just went to lunch at a later time and then went upstairs to get ready for pickup. The Captain did the same. My Skytress In-Charge and I jokingly said we should have acted like the pilots. No one at the hotel questioned why the pilots were still in their rooms. Ah, yes. Lesson learned.

The first time I learned acting like a pilot was a beneficial skill, happened while I was on a layover in Shreveport. My crew and I had one of the hotel shuttle drivers take us to a local restaurant. After eating a delightful meal, we called the hotel to have a shuttle driver come pick us up. The gal at the front desk told us she would radio the shuttle driver. My crew and I stood outside the restaurant and waited for the driver to come. And we waited. Yessiree. We waited outside the restaurant for an inordinate amount of time. We laughed and joked that gal at the front desk never told any of the drivers to pick us up because we were just Skytresses and Skyters. Of course, we decided to call the hotel again. This time I had the Skyter on our crew call and tell the gal at the front desk he was a Captain that needed a ride back to the hotel. A few minutes later another shuttle driver pulled up to the restaurant. While we were riding back to the hotel, the gal at the front desk radioed the driver. She informed him in an uncaring voice there were some Skytresses and Skyters that needed to be picked up. We all looked at each other and laughed. The driver was confused when we told him the Skytresses and Skyters were already in the shuttle. He did laughed along with us when we told him we acted like pilots so the hotel gal would send him immediately to pick us up. Ah, yes. When a pilot talks, people listen. Needless to say, I have reprised the roll of a pilot numerous times since that layover. Each time it has been an Oscar winning performance!

Ron and I used to chuckle every time he would get mistaken for a pilot. The truth be told, there aren’t too many six-foot three Skyters at our airline or any airline for that matter. When Ron was traveling out of uniform other pilots would notice his crew bags and ask him what type of equipment he flew. Ron would reply, “I fly them all”. After they would give them a quizzical look he would smile and tell them he wasn’t a pilot, he was a Skyter. On several occasions when Ron and I were flying together, the pilots weren’t able to stand at the cockpit door to say goodbye to the passengers. Ron would stand at the cockpit door because he was the Skyter In-Charge. Passengers would look at Ron and tell him “Great landing” or “Thanks Captain”. Ron would nod his head and say, “Thank you”. After the passengers stepped off the airplane we would look at each other and crack up. Yessiree. Ron had no problem acting like a pilot. Boy, I wish I had an Oscar to give to him.

I was flying with Ron’s friend, Skip one day. We went to get barbecue on our Syracuse layover. We didn’t realize there was a marathon happening that day. So,when we arrived at the restaurant it was packed. People were fighting for a place to sit. Skip had his airline baseball cap on. The sea of people parted when they noticed Skip’s hat. Skip and I got two prime seats at the bar to eat our meal. As people struggled to get the bartenders attention, they all wanted to know if Skip was a pilot for our airline. He told each person that he was better than a pilot. He told them he was a Skyter. No one believed him. I guess Skip just naturally acted like a pilot. I didn’t say anything to the inquisitive people. Heck. We got served quicker than other patrons. Being mistaken for a pilot definitely has it’s perks.

Needless to say, I have been observing pilots for 33 years. I’ll admit. Dating, Captain Pilot, gave me a better understanding of how pilots act on and off the airplane. They are decisive. They are direct in their communication. They always have a plan. And a backup plan to their primary plan. Rarely does anyone question them while they are in uniform. Even when they aren’t in uniform, no one questions them when they tell people they are a pilot. I call it Pilot Power. Thankfully, I’ve learned acting like a pilot can be just as powerful. The only downside to being a pilot…..they are absolutely helpless in the airplane galley. Still I hold out hope that one day we hear, “The Oscar goes to the pilot for…acting like a Skytress or Skyter and figuring out where the cups and sodas are located in the galley.” Yessiree. If Pinterest truly understands the job of a pilot, I know they already have a meme about this!