The Rerouted Skytress

The first time I was able to bid for vacation as a Skytress, I put the week of Christmas down for my first choice. I, obviously, didn’t hold this vacation. Nonetheless, I would bid this vacation date first every year afterwards. It was considered dream bidding. I knew one day my dream of holding a Christmas vacation would become a reality. I always wanted to be prepared for that day. Thirty years later, I WAS prepared. I wasn’t prepared, though, for the shock of seeing I held a Christmas vacation. It was a Christmas miracle, as far as I was concerned. Ron was senior to me at our airline. He was told to bid two weeks of vacation together to help his odds of holding a Christmas vacation his first round. Even with 30 years under his belt, he couldn’t hold a Christmas vacation. Thus, I figured I had to fly at least thirty-five years to hold a Christmas vacation. Yes, we could bid around the holiday and hold Christmas off. But, there is something victorious about finally being able to hold a Christmas vacation in the airline industry. After the shock of realizing I had vacation over Christmas, I became giddy. Then I became nostalgic. I have incredible Skytress memories from flying with my crews on Christmas. I tell younger, impatient, Skytresses and Skyters their day will come when they will be able to hold a Christmas vacation, too. However, I proclaim to them, some of my most memorable Skytress trips happened when I flew over the holidays…..starting with my first Christmas.

My first Christmas as a Skytress I had a St. Louis layover on Christmas Eve. Normally Skytresses and Skyters bid only once for the next month of flying. When I first started flying we would bid two times for December. This ensured more senior Skytresses and Skyters would hold the holidays off. Some senior people would bid to fly reserve the second part of December to hold the holidays off. Of course, the junior Skytresses and Skyters thought this was unfair. I didn’t mind. I got a lovely taste of “holding a line” the second week of December. I, also, held St. Louis layovers. I told everyone I dreamed bid to get the layovers at home. The reality was, more likely, no one else wanted a St. Louis layover for Christmas. For years, my family went to our friend’s house for a Christmas Eve party. When the Clatt’s heard I would be laying over in St. Louis on Christmas Eve, they asked me to invite my crew to come to their house. I did just that. My crew didn’t want to impose on our holiday. Fortunately, our dear friend, Mary, came to the airport with my Mom to make sure my crew agreed to come to the Clatt’s house. Mary worked for our airline. She and her family were spending the holidays with my family. Yes, Mary is the same person that suggested to me to become a Skytress. You may, also, remember, Mary’s daughters and I have been best friends since we were three and four-years old. I’m so fortunate that Mary convinced everyone to come for Christmas Eve. It is one of my favorite Christmas crew trips. The Clatt’s definitely know how to throw a party. More importantly, they know how to make everyone feel like family. I’m positive my crew didn’t expect to partake in our tradition of singing Christmas songs on Christmas Eve. Remarkably, they sang every song with us. One of my Christmas crewmembers, Veronica, was in my training class. Veronica is a Spanish speaker. Veronica made our holiday more memorable when she sang “Silent Night” in Spanish for us. It was a beautiful Christmas gift. Sadly, I haven’t seen my two Salt Lake based pilots, or my two Atlanta based Skytresses in years. To this day, however, my family and friends still reminisce about this Christmas party. I like to think each year on Christmas Eve, my Christmas crew still reminisces about this trip, too.

One Christmas I flew with a couple of my favorite Skytress friends. We layed over in Tampa on Christmas Day. We had a blast flying together on previous trips. So, we made a conscious decision we would have a grand time flying on Christmas, as well. We arrived in Tampa late Christmas Eve. After sleeping in a wee bit, we decided we would meet to go to breakfast together. As you can imagine, not much was open on Christmas morning. However, Waffle House was open. We were extremely grateful it was open, too. Our meals were filling. The laughter and smiles we shared were glorious. When we left to head back to the hotel, we walked smack-dab down the middle of the road. This only made us laugh harder. Only on Christmas could you walk down the middle of a normally very busy street with not one car passing by. I would have loved to have eaten at Waffle House on another one of my Christmas trips. That Christmas my crew and I got rerouted to Knoxville on Christmas Day. I had a strong feeling when we got our reroute to layover that we better get food before we left the airport. I was grateful we did. The hotel restaurant was closed. There wasn’t an open restaurant in sight either. Not even a Waffle House. That Christmas was also the first year TBS showed the movie, “A Christmas Story” for 24- continuous hours on TV. After watching the movie at least three times, I decided to call it a Christmas and I went to bed. My Christmas wish that holiday was for the trip to be over so we could get back home and celebrate properly with our families…..and get something decent to eat.

I loved to buddy-bid with my friends at Christmas. My friends and I knew based on our seniority we going to work the holiday. We decided we would like to fly the holiday with someone we knew and have a festive time. I used to buddy-bid with my friend Howard……or Skeeter, as I call him. One Christmas we flew to Minneapolis to layover. The crew was picked up in a limousine. The day before I had baked cookies for my crew. While we rode to the hotel I asked everyone if they would like some cookies. One Skytress on my crew accepted my offer. She took a huge bite of the oatmeal cookie. Then she declared in a grinch-like demeanor that there weren’t any raisins in the cookie. Skeeter had my back. He immediately told her I don’t like raisins in my oatmeal cookies. Then he asked her what she brought for the crew. She was speechless. I smiled at Skeeter. He chuckled under his breath. The next day Skeeter and I went to the employee cafeteria in Atlanta on our sit. Skeeter was telling me stories about being in the Marines. We were engrossed in conversations and lost track of time. We were unquestionably late to our next flight. When we got to the gate, the grumpy agent supervisor wanted to know why we were late. Skeeter had been a gate agent prior to being a Skyter. He told the agent he didn’t need to know why we were late…just that we were late. I had an uneasy feeling the supervisor wasn’t going to let our tardiness slide…..even on Christmas Day. After we boarded the plane, Skeeter popped out the boarding music tape and put in his own homemade Christmas music tape. I was amazed he knew how to swap the music out of the aircraft panel. Later when we got to San Francisco I listened to Skeeter’s Christmas music tape. It was a very eclectic mix of Christmas music. I mentioned this to Skeeter later when we walked around San Francisco. Our passengers must have been wondering who picked out the boarding music at our airline. It definitely was different! We eventually flew the all-nighter home to Cincinnati. Skeeter playfully left the Christmas coloring book I put in his stocking on the first-class counter. All through the night, the crew would saunter up to first class and color a page to pass the time. I know the Captain thought we had all lost our minds coloring the Christmas themed pages. Little did we know several years later adult coloring books would become the rage. When we got back to Cincinnati one of the more cantankerous supervisors stopped me in the crew lounge. Thankfully, she still had some Christmas spirit in her. She complimented me on my Christmas sweater. ( when Christmas sweaters weren’t considered ugly) Then she said she got a report that Skeeter and I were late to the gate in Atlanta. She was fully aware our flight departed before the scheduled time. But, she wanted to make sure Skeeter and I didn’t show up late for boarding ever again. I told her we wouldn’t. Santa may have put me on his naughty list right then and there.

Another year, I buddy-bid with my friend Jennie Lou. Yes, Skytress Jennie Lou was whom I flew with when we wore the Christmas bells around our necks. As you may recall, we were to ring our bells when we saw a cute passenger. At Christmas we always wore Santa hats when we preformed our safety demonstration. One year I brought battery-operated Santa hats. When turned on the hat pom-pom moved from one side to the other. My friend’s Mom discovered this jolly Santa hat weeks earlier at a drug store. I picked up my crew’s Santa hats at the drugstore when I was getting more battery-operated Christmas lights. We creatively hung the lights in the galley with bandaids from the galley drawers. We joked we would have to take our Christmas decorations down if someone needed a bandaid. We, also, put Christmas lights on our beverage carts. I don’t know if the passengers enjoyed all our Christmas decorations. But, we did. Jennie Lou, also, wore Christmas socks that made everyone on our crew merry. One flight we weren’t going to to set up our Christmas decorations. Then Mary….yes, the same Mary who came to the St. Louis airport with my Mom my first Christmas flying,…was on our flight going to Pittsburgh. I told my crew we had to bring out the Christmas decorations for Mary’s enjoyment. After all, I became a Skytress because of Mary. We couldn’t be Bah Humbugs on Mary’s flight.

Another Christmas I was flying with more of my Cincinnati friends. We flew into JFK and had to shuttle over to Newark. My Mom had made cookies for my crew. We ate them on the hour and a half drive to the hotel. When we got to the hotel we all piled into one room to watch a movie. I brought Christmas gifts for my crew. When we piled into my room, Skytress Wanda, thanked me for her Christmas ornament. Our friend David moaned in a joking way. He told Wanda they were all supposed to open their gifts together as a crew. This made us all laugh. The next day we flew to Los Angles to layover. Skytress Terri’s family flew out there with us. David came up to first-class during the flight and told me they had Terri’s daughter help them pick up the trash. She loved it. She was our honorary Skytress. When we went to dinner in LA, Terri’s daughter was disappointed that she had to go eat with her parents and not the rest of “her” crew. That evening we ate outside in the comfortable December LA weather. We admired all the boats in the marina that were decorated with Christmas lights. Fantastic friends and Christmas lights always make the holidays brighter when you fly.

I loved bringing my crew Christmas gifts when I flew the holiday. Being Irish, I would always give my crew Irish Christmas ornaments. One Christmas I helped the gate agents in St. Louis board the airplane. Unfortunately, I forgot to grab my Christmas bag of gifts when I eventually boarded the plane to commute to Atlanta. While on my flight, I tried to convince myself I put the Christmas bag in the overhead bin. I didn’t. I felt awful awful awful that I didn’t have gifts to give my crew. The next year I was in the crew lounge in Tampa. I had my Christmas gift bag next to my crew bags. When I went up to the gate I forgot to bring my Christmas bag with me. I know the gate agent supervisor wasn’t happy I ran back to the crew lounge to get it. But, I wasn’t going to start a tradition of leaving my Christmas bag behind every year. The looks on my Christmas crew’s faces when I gave them their presents was well-worth the sprint back to the crew lounge.

One Christmas my crew and I had a Christmas miracle. Scheduling needed a crew to fly to Portland, Maine at the last minute. Scheduling asked me if my crew would help them out by working the flight. In return, they would let us deadhead back to Cincinnati on the first flight and be off the rest of Christmas Day. I asked my crew what they would like to do. The scheduler promised us they wouldn’t change their mind about releasing us in the morning. So, we all agreed to fly to Portland. Scheduling kept their Christmas promise. We all made it back home for a full day of Christmas with our families. I know I was home in St. Louis by 0930. Just a few hours after Santa made it back home to the North Pole.

I love holding a Christmas vacation these days to ensure I am home with my family for the holiday. That being said, I loved spending Christmas with my airline family. Christmas crews are extra-special crews. Even Santa knows this. Santa, also, knows some of the best Christmas gifts don’t always come under the Christmas tree. The memories I made flying with my Christmas crews have been some of the best Christmas gifts I have ever received. I will cherish them forever. I readily admit, though, I will be very happy to have breakfast at home again this year…..and not at Waffle House! Merry Christmas everyone.