On July 16th I hopped in my car at 440am to head to the St. Louis airport. It was thundering as I got in my car. Egads. This was not a good sign. I immediately wondered if I would…or could… beat the rain to the airport. I turned on the car radio to give me some inspirational beat the rain to the airport music. In retrospect, I should have been singing, “Rain, rain, go away. Come back another day”. Sadly, I didn’t beat the rain. Instead, I stepped out of my car as a torrential downpour fell from the sky. The kind employee shuttle driver waited for me to make the mad dash from my car to his shuttle. I was in the rain less than a minute. But when I walked into the airport restroom after I got off the employee shuttle, I looked like I had taken a shower in my uniform. This definitely wasn’t how I wanted to start my first day back flying after being off four months. Unfortunately, rain would be my nemesis for the next three days.
My three-day trip looked harmless on paper. Yessiree. I told myself it would be the perfect trip to ease myself back into flying. After a Fort Myers turn we would fly to Daytona Beach for a nice layover. Our flight back to Atlanta was scheduled for 3pm the next day. My crew and I had the same excellent plan for our Daytona layover. We all planned to sleep in! Mother Nature had other plans. Eh! Doesn’t she always have other plans? Our first flight to Fort Myers was delayed because of rain. Thank you Mother Nature. Despite this, my crew and I had ambitious plans to turn the flight around as quickly as possible when we got to Fort Myers. Not surprisingly, the agents in Fort Myers were even more ambitious. They had been dealing with flight delays all day because of the weather. Or should I say, because of Mother Nature?
Mother Nature threw us a nasty curve ball on our takeoff from Fort Myers. I was sitting on the front jumpseat with my Skytress In-Charge. We were enthusiastically solving the world’s problems. I mean, we were enthusiastically doing our mental review for takeoff as required by our airline. Wink. Wink. We were on a rapid rollout when the pilots quickly brought the aircraft to a stop. I immediately knew we aborted our takeoff due to wind sheer. Although, it rarely happens, one never forgets that feeling. My very junior Skytress In-Charge had never had an aborted takeoff due to wind sheer. She wasn’t sure what had happened. I explained about the wind sheer. I explained the brakes get so hot from aborting a takeoff that we most likely would need to wait for the brakes to cool off before we could take off again for Atlanta. I should have followed this explanation with a round of, “Rain, rain, go away. Come back another day”. Yessiree. We couldn’t go back to the gate because Mother Nature whipped up some horrendous lightning to go along with the heavy rain. The ramp closed for the safety of the ramp agents. Of course, we eventually went back to the gate when the lightening cleared. Not because the brakes needing more time to cool down. No siree. We had passengers that wanted to get off the airplane. They were going to miss their connections in Atlanta. These passengers decided they would rather sleep in their own beds than sleep in a hotel bed in Atlanta. Unfortunately for us, scheduling rerouted us to sleep in a bed in Atlanta instead of bed in Daytona Beach. Scheduling deemed we wouldn’t make it back to Atlanta in time to fly to Daytona. Scheduling also decided the next day we would get up early and go to Washington D.C. and back before we resumed our original rotation. I swear Mother Nature and Crew Scheduling were in cahoots with each other. So, after 22 hours of sporting bad rain weather hair, I finally put my head down on my hotel pillow in Atlanta for my minimum crew rest.
I felt I dealt admirably with our short domicile layover. Heck. We were still going to Jackson Hole. A short Jackson Hole layover beats a no Jackson Hole layover any day. As soon as the gate agent in Jackson Hole opened the aircraft door, my soul was resuscitated by the cool gentle breeze and the glorious view of the Grand Tetons. I’m not sure who got the approval to put the Jackson Hole airport smack dab in the middle of the Grand Teton National Park. But, kudos to them. Unfortunately, they did fail miserably for not getting a special dispensation for lavatory trucks to be able to dump the lavs while on national park land. Talk about a stinky situation in the morning. Oh, well. I’ll take stinky lavatories in exchange for the Grand Teton mountain views any day of the week.
Instead of gawking at the Grand Tetons on the way back to the airport the next morning, I should have been saying, “Rain, rain. Go away. Come back another day”. Yessiree. The combination of go home day and rain is never a winning combination. Of course, we made it back to Atlanta from Jackson Hole without any issues. Of course, we had a long sit in Atlanta without any issues. Of course, when it was time to go to Milwaukee on our last turn….we had issues. Rain issues. Our plane to Milwaukee was delayed coming in from Chicago because of weather. This delay proved to be perfect timing for the thunderstorms to build up around the Atlanta airport. Obviously, Mother Nature didn’t want the rain to come back another day. No siree. She insisted it come immediately after we boarded the airplane for Milwaukee and pushed back from the gate. She also insured our APU…the auxiliary power unit….that cools the aircraft… was not functioning properly. Darn you Mother Nature!
I should have sang, “Rain. Rain. Go away.Come back another day” all the way to Milwaukee. Only I was too busy checking and rechecking my last commuter flight home. I swear I could hear Mother Nature laughing at her handy work while I feverishly refreshed the flight app. Eventually, I came to the realization that after a short layover in Jackson Hole, where I only got two hours of sleep, I would have to spend the night in the lounge and catch the first flight home in the morning. In my state of dejection, I somehow remembered my Skytress trump card. Yessiree. The Rerouted Skytress trump card I needed to beat Mother Nature at her own game. I had a kind conversation with God. I told him I readily accepted the fact I was going to have to stay in the crew lounge. But, I would also greatly appreciate it if he would delay my flight home to St. Louis. You bet I asked my angels in Reroute Heaven to work their magic to delay my flight home, too. You know the saying, “ask and you shall receive?” Well, it doesn’t always work when it comes to winning the Power Ball lottery. But, it sure works enough times for me when it comes to delaying my flight home. This night was no exception. Yes. I did have to power walk to my gate. But, I made it to the gate in time for the boarding process.
I’d like to say that was my happy ending to my first trip back after four months off. But, a wee bit of drama ensued before we took off for St. louis. We had an aborted takeoff. Yes. I know I said it rarely happens. But, I haven’t written a flying blog post in a while. So apparently God wanted to make sure I had ample material. Our aircraft was on our takeoff rollout when, as the Captain said, “We had a runway conflict with another aircraft and had to abort our takeoff”. Simply put, another aircraft crossed our runway when they shouldn’t have. Fortunately, we weren’t at maximum speed. Fortunately, our brakes didn’t need extra time to cool off. After a short delay I was heading home to St. Louis. I was up 24 hours when I eventually got home. I considered myself very lucky. If I hadn’t made my flight home I would have been caught up in the CrowdStrike computer glitch that paralyzed our airline. That glitch happened on Friday. Our airline was still reeling from the effects on Tuesday when I went back to work. Forget, “Rain. Rain. Go away”. My rally cry for that trip should have been, “Come back another day”. Egads!