Think your commute is bad? Try Wichita to New York, Vancouver to Dallas or Panama to Miami.
For pilots and flight attendants, those commutes are not simply routine but long-standing matters of choice, supported by two of the perks that make working for an airline special: They can hitch a ride on most any airline with an empty seat, and they usually have to work only 15 to 18 days a month, making it easy for them to live anywhere they want.
But nowadays, they find it hard to get home because planes are so full. “Sometimes it takes me two days,” said Jason Miller, 36, an Airbus 320 captain for JetBlue Airways.
Miller's typical commute to work: up at 4 a.m. in his Wichita, Kan., home; catch a 6 a.m. flight to any midcountry hub (like Dallas, Chicago or Denver); then hope for a seat on an immediate connecting flight to Kennedy International Airport in New York, where he is based.
“It's hit or miss,” Miller said. “I go through every conceivable hub known to man.”
After he lands at Kennedy, Miller sleeps all afternoon and evening, then reports to work at 11 p.m. for a late flight to the West Coast. Like many pilots and flight attendants who fly out of New York, he shares a small apartment, known as a crash pad, near the airport.
Miller signs up to pilot red-eye flights because he can typically finish a multiday trip at sunrise in New York and then begin his trek home. “It makes my commuting easier,” he said. “It gives me all day to work it out.”
“I'm a freak,” Miller joked.
Not quite. The ranks of extreme commuters, already in the tens of thousands, appear to be growing as financially struggling airlines trim flight schedules. Six major airlines have reduced their combined fleets by 700 airplanes since June 30, 2001.
Most airline employees fly free in unsold seats or in jump seats in the cabin or cockpit, on their own airline or others. But with domestic flights averaging about 80 percent full – meaning well-traveled routes at popular times are completely full – more airline workers are competing for far fewer seats.
Airlines are also reducing the number of airports where they base their flight crews. With fewer airports to call their home base, employees face a choice: Either move near a more heavily traveled airport or become commuters.
Is commuting so bad? Bridget Drago, 27, an American Airlines flight attendant who lives in Denver and flies out of LaGuardia Airport in New York, pondered that question as she lay stretched out in a recliner chair watching a DVD of “Brokeback Mountain.”
This homey scene, however, was playing out at La Guardia in one of two communal sleeping rooms – each outfitted for about 30 people – maintained by American. Drago sleeps there free several nights a month between trips. “It's all I can afford,” she said. “There are hundreds of us who do this in New York.”
Certain skills help. “I can honestly sleep at any time of the day in any time zone,” said Kiandra Schardt, 26, a JetBlue flight attendant with a long commute from Hawaii to New York. When she returns to her studio apartment at the beach on Oahu after her two weeks of work, she said, “it's worth it.”
Wary of fatigued pilots and flight attendants, the Federal Aviation Administration limits flying hours and mandates minimum time between flights. Some union contracts enforce further limits. But what employees do during their off hours – sleep or commute – is not policed.
“We can't be there making sure they go to bed at the right time,” said Mark Rosenker, acting chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board. “These people are professionals.”
Miller, the JetBlue pilot from Wichita, says he polices himself.
“When I'm going to work, I always have to have eight hours of sleep before I fly. I won't compromise safety,” he said. “Plus, it's my career. One mistake and I'm done.”
For the commuters, a short trip is nice, but even better is a route with little competition. Ed Martin, a flight attendant for American who is based in Dallas, said of commuting from his home in Vancouver, British Columbia: “I'm not competing with anyone.”
Martin, who waits in Dallas for a flight that needs him, has become a regular at a Motel 6 near the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, paying the special crew rate of $28 a night. Sometimes he waits as many as five nights in a row for a flight.
Anne Loew avoided commuting for 29 years, living in and flying out of the New York area as a flight attendant for American. But she and her husband, a freelance photographer, moved to Panama City, Panama, last year, and Loew, 52, transferred to American's Miami base.
“I'm worried about my pension,” she said. “The cost of living down here will allow me to put the maximum in my 401(k).”
With no competing commuters, she easily boards a 1:25 p.m. flight from Panama to Miami, gets in at 5:15 p.m. and has plenty of time to make a work flight the same night to Buenos Aires, Argentina, or Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
As years go by, though, commuting can lose its charm. Ellen McNamara, a flight attendant for American for 30 years, has commuted to O'Hare International Airport in Chicago from her home in Nashville, Tenn., since 1995. Flights are often full, so she ends up flying into Midway Airport often enough that she buys the Midway-to-O'Hare shuttle bus tickets 10 at a time, for $65.
Getting home for a doctor's appointment – or to be with her husband – is getting harder. “If it weren't for the commuting,” said McNamara, 58, “I could probably do this until I'm 70.” Instead, she is thinking of retiring at 60. “I think it's time. It takes a toll.”
