Where are you on Thanksgiving / Christmas?

e6bflyer said:
Blank "line" bid complete. Looks like that roll of the dice ended badly. 24th-27th on PM reserve in ye olde ghetto crash pad. My entire month is pure reserve. So much for that failed experiment. At least I will have a good story about my first year in the airlines and how I walked uphill both ways.
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Wait, you're a noob and you thought you'd get Christmas off?
 
No, on the contrary, I assumed I would be working Christmas. I racked and stacked my reserve bids to get the best schedule assuming I was working that day, then put the blank lines and the hard lines in no particular order on top just for grins.

Turns out I got a blank line. These are normally made up of bits and pieces of drops due to vacation, mil leave, etc. I then got a glimmer of hope that I may spend Christmas somewhere other than sad crashpad and may actually get a company sponsored meal out of the deal and a nice hotel room. The blank lines came out and about 1/3 of them were pure reserve, I can only assume due to the extreme pilot overmanning that we have going on right now. Not only were they reserve, but there were about 5 absolutely crappy ones that were worse the any of the first round bidding reserve lines. I got one of those. Lesson learned.

I have spent enough Christmases away from home to not really care that much. We always figure out a way to celebrate it one way or another. My wife already had other plans this year anyway, just assuming that I won't be there.

I figure I will probably work at least 40-50 percent of the holidays for the rest of my career. No big deal. I have been missing holidays, birthdays, and anniversaries for the better part of two decades already.
 
I struggle every month with how many blank lines to put below my reserve choices for just that reason. I usually end up picking around 10% and round up. Once or twice that meant I got a reserve line with 16 days off when I could have had a blank line that had 19 and paid more. That's not nearly as bad though as getting a blank line only to find out its one of those Frankenreserve lines you were talking about.

On the up side you might be able to actually give away that Christmas Day reserve to some line holder who lives in base and didn't want to fly. Then either pick something up or just take the minor financial hit and enjoy a holiday at home.
 
I get to spend Thanksgiving in Pasco (maybe I'll get superpowers from drinking the water at the hotel...), and Christmas is going to be spent on a six-leg, 12 hour day out of Eugene with zero breaks.
 
JordanD said:
Thanksgiving off unless they for some reason decide to call me back out early. I know our Lidar operators get the holidays off which means we can't fly, but they probably have to weigh that against the cost of flying us home for a few days. Might make for some lonely, depressing hotel room drinking.
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<— Thanksgiving, KMLU 1999

A couple of 40's, an Arco station hot dog and some internet porn. We had dial-up back then. You can make it happen.
 
JordanD said:
Dude, that's a normal rotation for me.
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And there's nothing wrong with that.

Actually my story was from 2000.

I can't remember when it was but my worst Thanksgiving memory in the airline business was eating "Super Tacos" at a Dallas Jack in the Box (I love those things) and then some dorks spill out of a dirty pickup, crap all over their boots and walk past the dining room to go order.

Arizona is somewhat backwards, but only in Texas can someone walk into a food establishment with fecal matter on their boots and no one blinks an eye.

And I'm half Texan. Texas blows.

Except for Austin and ONLY Austin.
 
Derg said:
And there's nothing wrong with that.

Actually my story was from 2000.

I can't remember when it was but my worst Thanksgiving memory in the airline business was eating "Super Tacos" at a Dallas Jack in the Box (I love those things) and then some dorks spill out of a dirty pickup, crap all over their boots and walk past the dining room to go order.

Arizona is somewhat backwards, but only in Texas can someone walk into a food establishment with fecal matter on their boots and no one blinks an eye.

And I'm half Texan. Texas blows.

Except for Austin and ONLY Austin.
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An oasis of awesome in an ocean of scheisse. And I love when places like Jack in the Box or McDonald's have the audacity to call it a "dining room."

My first Thanksgiving on the road was last year in Reno. Alone. The choice between staying inside the room all day or venturing out into the casino floor with a thousand old people sucking on o2 and smoking cigs at the same time wasn't a very tough one.
 
Derg said:
I can't remember when it was but my worst Thanksgiving memory in the airline business was eating "Super Tacos" at a Dallas Jack in the Box (I love those things) and then some dorks spill out of a dirty pickup, crap all over their boots and walk past the dining room to go order.
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Mine was in TYS. Had to walk the two miles plus down the highway to the waffle house at the next exit because that was the only food available anywhere within walking distance.
 
JordanD said:
An oasis of awesome in an ocean of scheisse. And I love when places like Jack in the Box or McDonald's have the audacity to call it a "dining room."

My first Thanksgiving on the road was last year in Reno. Alone. The choice between staying inside the room all day or venturing out into the casino floor with a thousand old people sucking on o2 and smoking cigs at the same time wasn't a very tough one.
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I shot a man in Reno.

The strip in Reno is where people go that think Central Oregon Indian Casinos are "too high falootin' and fancy with all their clean clothes and washed faces and such"
 
I will admit that being a pilot for 100% of my professional worklife and having no kids, I really don't give that much of a poop about getting holidays off except if the wife wants to do something.

It generally seems like people will wreck an entire month of flying to get a day or two off then spend that time thinking, "Crap, I can't wait to get back to work to get away from Uncle Beamish's drunken stories of that one time he was on shore leave in The Philippines and Aunt Methusa is having hot flashes and wants to tell me how I'm doing everything wrong" :)

I prefer Thanksgiving a week before and Christmas a few days early too. Otherwise, it's like trying to get into Costco or Lowes on a Saturday afternoon.
 
With a 12 days on 3 days off schedule, both Thanksgiving and Christmas landed on off days for me.
 
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