The Schedule Lottery

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In the airline world seniority means everything. It runs your life from your days off to what trips you work and from your vacation time to your pay. Monthly you’re always reminded of exactly where you stand when you bid for next months schedule.

Depending on where your seniority stands, it’s almost like playing the lottery every month. You pick some trips and days off you like and you hope you hit the jackpot by getting awarded everything you want, but most likely you get 1, 2, or 3 things you asked for.

Luckily, I left my last airline where out of 2900 flight attendants in my base I was bidding 2305. I was STILL on reserve and will probably never see a line in my life time. Now, at my new airline I’m bidding the “purser” position, #65 out of 120. That’s not TOO bad, but if I was bidding in the main cabin, I’d be #60 of 280.

I always get some of the trips I bid for. I never usually get my first preference, it usually takes my first 4 preferences before my line is completely built. Usually I bid for trips that avoid New York (JFK) mostly because that was the first city we opened and I feel like I’ve been flying there for 2 years, I can deal with the people no problem (I was born and raised there).. but it is now become one of the more junior cities as we’ve expanded because of the people. I like my transcon flying and only working 1 or 2 flights a day. So, based on those preferences I pick trips that I’d want to fly, in essence building myself a few “perfect” schedules and enter those in as my top 4 preferences. This time, it turned out OK. I ended up going to JFK.. but got my days off I needed (I’m going to see Pam Ann) and I had to bid around my recurrent training. Here’s what I ended up with:

At least I get to go to Boston and LA all month, I’m excited for that! Boston is a lot of fun and a great hotel. LA, though the hotel is less than Boston standards theres a lot around there and allows me time to rest on my home (Phoenix) time zone. Seattle brings me a nice layover too of 21 hours..And, thats right.. theres 15 days off in there! Whoo hoo! Anyway, if you’re a FA and happen to be in any of these cities on the same day as me next month.. Let me know! Maybe we can meetup and if you’re from Twitter like myself, I guess you’d call it a Tweetup! What does everyone have for October? How do your schedules look? Note: The COMMENT button has moved to BELOW the posts now, after the tags and categories it says “Leave a Comment”

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