The Rerouted Skytress

There are many people that are not fans of Friday the 13th. They consider it an unlucky day. Not me. I rather like Friday the 13th. It is usually a very lucky day for me. This past Tuesday the 13th, on the other hand, was not a lucky day at all for me. It was more like other people’s Friday the 13th. Even the lucky penny I found couldn’t reverse the bad luck. Fortunately, my bad luck is your good luck. Yes, brace yourself. Here comes a Rerouted Skytress story….complete with a few reroutes!

Tuesday the 13th reared it ugly head early in the morning. I was heading to the airport at 445am. There was no rain in the forecast. Yet, as I pulled out of the subdivision there it was. Thankfully, the rain wasn’t too bad. It was just bad enough to mess up my hair for the day……..My day that lasted over 24 hours.

I arrived in Atlanta without any issues. Other than my crazy rain hair, that is. I signed in for my trip and went to the room to get my obligatory temperature check. I passed with flying colors. Well, I’m not really sure if there were colors. Especially colors that were flying. But, I didn’t have a temperature. And that was the important thing. No sooner did I sit down in the crew lounge when my phone rang. I knew immediately it was an Atlanta number. More specifically, it was an airline company number. The pleasant gal on the other end identified herself to me. She explained she was from the airline Covid-19 team. As pleasant as she was, I knew what she was about to tell me wasn’t going to be so pleasant. She informed me that someone I may have been in contact with was exhibiting COVID-like symptoms. My stomach did a flip. Then it did a flop. The kind lady then informed me that I was not in prolonged contact with the person. However, I would still need to self-monitor for 14 days. She then stated she would email me information that I may or may not need….. so, I didn’t need to write anything down. I laughed….. because I was already writing things down. I informed the pleasant lady that I had already received my two COVID vaccinations. I wasn’t sure if I was trying to be more positive for her or me by stating this information. I hope she felt better, because I didn’t. No, a very bizarre thing happened instead. I hung up with the woman and started to experience all the COVID -19 symptoms. Well, sort of. Yes, I could still taste and smell. I knew I didn’t have a fever minutes prior to the phone call. Now, I was certain I was feverish with at least 105 degree temperature. Of course, at that moment, I couldn’t remember all the symptoms of COVID. But, I was quite sure I now had them all. Worse yet, I was convinced I would have to quarantine in a hotel at the Atlanta airport for two weeks. Fortunately, I pulled myself together and came to my senses. And just like that the COVID-19 symptoms all went away. Then I received a text from my sister informing me a lady from the airline COVID-19 team had called my house looking for me. My sister’s text brought back the bad memory of my recent phone call. The text did more than that, actually. Amazingly, before I could text my sister back to let her know I spoke with the company team member, ….all of my COVID-19 symptoms came rushing back.

I was once again COVID- free when I had to go brief for my trip. Well, that is, unless being a complete ding-a-ling is a COVID-19 symptom. If this is the case….then I was still exhibiting COVID symptoms. Earlier when I got to the crew lounge I looked up my briefing table number. I wrote the briefing number on my flight rotation. I even circled the number. My crew and I were to brief at table 4. Promptly at briefing time, I went to table 3 and patiently waited for my crew. They never came. I heard two Skytresses at the table next to mine talking about their trip. They were going to the same places as me. Unlike me, however, they were sitting at table 4. Ugh! Tuesday the 13th was definitely making itself known and making me look like an idiot at the same time. After I realized my blunder, I briefed with my crew at briefing table 4 and off we went to fly our easy trip. Did I say “our easy trip”? Yes, I did. Unfortunately, Tuesday the 13th heard me say it, too.

Our flight to New Orleans was bumpy. So bumpy we barely had time to throw our snack bags at the passengers before the Captain had us take our jumpseats. I sat on my Skytress jumpseat and counted the minutes until we were to land in New Orleans. The minutes were quickly adding up. I realized we were taking an awful, awful, awful long time getting to New Orleans. Of course, there was a perfectly good reason why it was taking us so long to get to New Orleans. It was Tuesday the 13th! There were severe thunderstorms storms in The Big Easy. We weren’t going to land in New Orleans. No, we were being diverted to Pensacola.

When the announcement was made for the passengers to deplane in Pensacola, I knew we were entering a pickle stage. When I walked to the front of the plane I realized how bad the pickle was. A severe thunderstorm was hanging over New Orleans. And it wasn’t moving. I was informed by our Captain that their legal duty day limitations were fast approaching. Our pilots were going to time out. They would have to stay in Pensacola to layover. My crew and the passengers were not going to stay in Pensacola. We were going to have to wait for new pilots to deadhead in to Pensacola to fly us to New Orleans. Tuesday the 13th was being relentless. Our cell phones started ringing off the hooks. Oh, boy. The Rerouted Skytress was being rerouted. Reroutes were coming in fast. First we were going to have a long 30-hour Portland, Maine layover. I could instantly tell the Portland layover wasn’t going to be feasible. The computer had us landing in New Orleans hours before our new pilots were to arrive in Pensacola to take us there. When the computer figured out the flight times didn’t match up….we got another reroute. We were going to have a long 30-hour Chicago layover. Thanks to another Tuesday the 13th reroute, we were going to get home 6 hours later than our original scheduled release time on Thursday. This was not good for the commuters on my crew. Unfortunately, I was one of them.

We sat on the airplane for 8 hours watching our 30-hour Chicago layover change multiple times. We were no longer going to Chicago. We were now going to have a long domicile layover in Atlanta and deadhead to Chicago the next day. We would eventually fly the rest of the rerouted trip. Finally, we got word that our new pilots were on their final approach into Pensacola. Of course, the agents wanted to re-board the passengers before the pilots landed. The agents wanted us to be ready to depart as soon as the new pilots arrived on our aircraft. So, of course, we boarded the passengers back onto the airplane. Now, did I mention it was Tuesday the 13th? You guessed it. We waited on the aircraft with all our passengers as the pilots circled Pensacola. Over an hour later we finally pushed back from the gate with our new pilots to go to New Orleans. We pushed back from the gate. We didn’t take off. No that would only happen if it was Friday the 13th. We sat on the tarmac in Pensacola and we waited some more. All the while, our Atlanta domicile layover was getting shorter and shorter.

We were a highly motivated crew when we finally arrived in New Orleans. Our pilots in New Orleans had been waiting at the airport the whole time we were in Pensacola. They were as anxious to get back to Atlanta as we were. We were now scheduled to arrive in Atlanta at 2am. Because it was still Tuesday the 13th in New Orleans….we got a new arrival gate in Atlanta. We would now be parking at a gate on the international concourse. Unfortunately, we all knew the trains to baggage claim would no longer be running that late at night. We, along with our passengers, would have to walk over a mile to get to baggage claim and to the hotel shuttles. Fortunately, the Captain called Atlanta and pleaded for a better arrival gate. I found a lucky penny from Heaven in the gatehouse area while the plane was being fogged. These two things in tandem managed a miracle before we boarded one Atlanta bound passenger. Yes, we were granted our wish for a better gate. Our new arrival gate would be close to baggage claim and the hotel shuttles. Finally, we boarded our plane to head to Atlanta. We pushed back from the gate. And you guessed it….we waited. Our weight and balance numbers needed to be rectified. I kept receiving updated messages on my Skytress phone. Our arrival time in Atlanta kept getting pushed back. We eventually landed in Atlanta at 230am. My crew and I had briefed the day before at 1130am. We were plumb tuckered out. We just wanted to get to our hotel and go to sleep. My Skytress In-Charge called the hotel to make sure the hotel shuttle was still operating. It was. Unfortunately, the hotel shuttle driver was on his break. He couldn’t pick us up until 315am. We were exasperated. Our Skytress In-Charge called the hotel back and requested they pay for our cab ride to the hotel instead. Fortunately, there was still some luck in the lucky penny I found. The hotel manager agreed to pay for our cab. At 330am I walked into my hotel room. That’s when I noticed I had sat on chocolate in the cab on the way to the hotel. It was all over my Skytress uniform pants. I shook my head in disbelief. It was another dose of bad luck….complements of Tuesday the 13th.