I found myself in the really bad position yesterday where a flight cancellation from the previous night filled up all the flights I was supposed to take home the next day. There were a ton of seats when I listed, then a few hours later I double checked and saw everything was oversold but at that point there wasn't really much I could do since the last flight of the night had already left. To make it all the more interesting, I had to be at work in the afternoon. I made it on the first flight out, took my seat, and we deboard because of a groundstop due to weather at the destination. We go back in, wait around for an hour, and then the airline decides to cancel the (full) flight. There's still 2 other flights that would get me in on time, but they're obviously all full now. To top it off, the second we get into the terminal, all the computers have crashed. I'm listed but can't check in for the next flight home. The gate agent's doing everything by pen and paper because the computers are down, and she says she has one seat left, just go on and find it and take it. I get on the plane, walk up and down the aisle, and unfortunately, that empty seat doesn't exist. So I tell the FA that the gate agent must have miscounted. The FA points out that they can see if the deadheading pilot on board would mind riding in the jumpseat so I can get on, but a few seconds later she comes back and says he said no because if his union found out he'd get in trouble. So I'm off the flight and pretty much out of luck. Since I'm not a crew member, obviously the jumpseat isn't available to me and I'm pretty much SOL at this point. When all was said and done, I got on the last flight that's scheduled to get me in on time, but due to our routing I ended up being late to work. I'm not sure yet what's goign to come out of it, but a lot of what happened was beyond my control.
Is it really that big of a deal if a deadheading pilot takes the jumpseat to help another airline employee out? I'd been talking to the guy in the gate area beforehand and mentioned that I needed to get the work. Anyone care to explain this to me? I don't want to go get all fired up about something I know nothing about, but like I said, it would be nice if there were exceptions made to help another airline person get home/to work in these kinds of screwed up, out of the ordinary situations.
Is it really that big of a deal if a deadheading pilot takes the jumpseat to help another airline employee out? I'd been talking to the guy in the gate area beforehand and mentioned that I needed to get the work. Anyone care to explain this to me? I don't want to go get all fired up about something I know nothing about, but like I said, it would be nice if there were exceptions made to help another airline person get home/to work in these kinds of screwed up, out of the ordinary situations.
