No Room at the Inn for AA Pilots and Flight Attendants

It's a common term of endearment for scheduling. I took it as a purposeful spelling.
 
Room at the Inn..........

We were eastbound, IFR flight plan, and just getting into the Appalachian chain of mountains. Ceilings were lowering, it was evening, and I am not fond of crossing mountains when there is not a thousand feet of VFR underneath.

We diverted to an unfamiliar airport, and found that it had been built on a ridge some miles from town to avoid valley fog. The attendant advised that cabs charged mileage both ways, at the same rate ie, 2 passengers and luggage both ways, and gave us an estimate of the typical charge. I commented "Well we don't have much choice, do we".

He pointed to a van, idling on the ramp, and said talk to the driver, he is the contract hotel's driver for the crew of the commuter coming in. I did, he said that the hotel allowed him to carry extra people, if they were staying at their hotel. 15 minutes later, the commuter came in, and the crew came to the van. We traveled to their hotel, registered, and enquired what time the crew was returning to the airport. Many of these hotels also have a special rate for charter crews, I showed them my Com certificate, and received the discount.

I learned years ago to ask at the airport if any hotels had this curtesy and found that the discounts were as much as 40%.

The next morning, we were waiting patiently for the crew van, and returned to the airport to continue our flight. We had free two way transportation, plus a discount.

Do the crew of commuters stay in top rank hotels? No. Clean and near at least one place to eat, Yes. One of the more pleasant unexpected enroute stops, and the weather the next day was near VFR, but I filed IFR anyway, to get a much higher altitude across the mountains.
 
luvflyin said:
Ok. I thought it was. But then I thought, ya know, he probably really meant it.

"...
Your statement only works if you assume that the flight attendant was a woman, make assumptions about sexual preferences of the people involved or assume that gender has anything to do with pilot crew having more pull than cabin crew…

the most ****ed off captain I have ever seen in action was a lady close to retirement dealing with a holes in screw scheduling being down right hateful to an all male cabin staff."
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Yeah. That was a joke. Kinda :)
 
It’s all in good fun. They are just doing the job as management directs. Not all companies have screw scheduling. I’ve just been really lucky to enjoy that feature everywhere I’ve worked.
 
geezer said:
He pointed to a van, idling on the ramp, and said talk to the driver, he is the contract hotel's driver for the crew of the commuter coming in. I did, he said that the hotel allowed him to carry extra people, if they were staying at their hotel. 15 minutes later, the commuter came in, and the crew came to the van.
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A hotel van at the airport more than 15 minutes before the flight arrives? Now your whole story is suspect!
 
Not a crew scheduling problem but this thread makes me remember once I was waiting at the gate, we were the last flight out and we were already late. Gate agent had told me we had 8 passengers connecting from our mainline carrier that had just got to their gate. I decided to wait for them and we also picked up a couple of jumpseaters trying to get home. We were over an hour late when we blocked out with everyone on board. The next day was 9-11.
 
I’m really confused.

Don’t the pilots and FA’s attend their AA meetings in one big room?
 
Larry, the van was not early, the flight was very late, as regionals often are. Especially on the last flight of the day.

I asked my wife if she could remember where we were that night, she did not, but added that our son was with us. I was dead tired from more than 2 hours VFR, followed by 4 hours of bumpy actual IFR in a C172, so as soon as I had supper, I went to bed. She and my son went to the Target just down the highway, to look around for a birthday present for him.

Three people at the same time and place remember different things, My son distinctly remembers shopping at Target for that present, but not the van ride. My wife does not remember sharing with the air crew.
 
Rest for me is hard in a motel. I've spent the last 9 months between Juneau and Seattle. I now ask for a room on the top floor, cant stand hearing folks stomp their way back and forth in the room above me.

I bet rest for a flight crew can be hard. The last thing want is a flight crew that is not rested. Hats off to you all for the work you do.
 
This is poor planning once again at AA. Is anyone in the Corp office paying attention? Their product had continued to decline and service levels are awful.

I continue to be amazed how AA is running the company.
 
"Checked into the layover hotel. the desk clerk asked if I needed assistance finding my room?. I said no I could find it. He inquired if I had ever been at that hotel before. I said no. He replied, the room is a bit hard to find. I replied well, it was above the bar and in between the ice make and the elevator, and the AC has been out for at least a month. He relied, I thought you said you had not been here before". Funny, but sooooooo true. I lived that life many times in my career. Airlines book many millions of dollars of crew rooms. Finding cheaper rooms is a major focus. So if the hotel is being renovated and therefore can't be rented to normal customers, they seek out airlines to rent it to. For many years it was common to be in a hotel that was under construction. Almost normal. So the "Right to walk" if you can't get quality rest for what ever reason is very important. The airlines and hotels do a lot of hot bunking in hotels. so one crew will be checking out as the next crew will be checking in. The staff will be cleaning the rooms in between. You might wait for hours while the hotel staff cleans the room, IF they actually really clean it and change the linens. It's pretty common for them to just make the bed, and only replace the sheets occasionally. The hotel doesn't want to staff for the rush. So there will be a few people cleaning all the crew rooms at 08:00. Maybe 18 rooms, but no rooms need to be cleaned at 08:30 and the previous crew left the room at 07:30. Crew hotel rooms are a constant problem.
 
TommyG said:
Oh poor precious babies.
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AKBill said:
Rest for me is hard in a motel. I've spent the last 9 months between Juneau and Seattle. I now ask for a room on the top floor, cant stand hearing folks stomp their way back and forth in the room above me.

I bet rest for a flight crew can be hard. The last thing want is a flight crew that is not rested. Hats off to you all for the work you do.
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Two messages from two different ends of the spectrum. One guy gets it. The other doesn't.
 
AKBill said:
Rest for me is hard in a motel. I've spent the last 9 months between Juneau and Seattle. I now ask for a room on the top floor, cant stand hearing folks stomp their way back and forth in the room above me.

I bet rest for a flight crew can be hard. The last thing want is a flight crew that is not rested. Hats off to you all for the work you do.
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I find I get better sleep at work in the airline hotels than I do at home. Many fewer distractions, no work to feel like I should be doing. Sometimes going to work is like going on vacation from work at home.
 
^^^^^ its a double life. Go to work until you are exhausted, then go home and run around like rats chasing their tails trying to get everything done that got undone while you were working. Yes usually my crash pad was more relaxing than home. Living two totally different and separate lives that seldom touch, but are always controlling.
 
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